UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


8515 


r 


A  MEMOIR 

OF 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

BY 

JAMES   ELLIOT   CABOT 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I. 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

(C&e  RrtjevsiDe  $nfa  CambnDoe 
1895 


Copyright,  1887, 
BY  JAMES  ELLIOT   CABOT. 

All  rights  reserved. 


EIGHTH  EDITION. 


Tlie  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass  ,  U.  8.  A, 
Electro^- ped  ana  Printed  by  11.  0.  Uoughton  &  Ccmpany. 


PS 
€1  I 

vj 

PREFACE. 


MY  object  in  this  book  has  been  to  offer  to  the 
readers  and  friends  of  Emerson  some  further  illus- 
trations, some  details  of  his  outward  and  inward 
history  that  may  fill  out  and  define  more  closely 
the  image  of  him  they  already  have,  rather  than  to 
attempt  a  picture  which  should  make  him  known 
to  strangers,  or  set  him  forth  in  due  relation  to  his 
surroundings  or  to  the  world  at  large.  The  posi- 
tion of  literary  executor  to  which  he  appointed  me, 
and  the  desire  of  his  family  that  I  would  write  a 
memoir  of  him,  have  given  me  access  to  his  unpub- 
lished writings  (including  many  letters  confided  to 
me  by  some  of  his  most  valued  correspondents,  to 
whom  I  render  hearty  thanks),  and  to  sources  of 
information  in  the  memories  of  persons  who  knew 
him  in  his  early  years  and  in  his  home.  My  aim 
has  been  to  use  these  opportunities  to  furnish  ma- 
terials for  an  estimate  of  him,  without  undertaking 
any  estimate  or  interposing  any  comments  beyond 


iv    ,  PREFACE. 

what  seemed  necessary  for  the  better  understand- 
ing of  the  facts  presented.  Where  I  may  seem  to 
have  transgressed  this  rule,  I  am  in  truth  for  the 
most  part  only  summing  up  impressions  gathered 
from  his  journals  and  correspondence,  or  from  the 
recollections  of  his  contemporaries. 

The  letters  I  have  found  less  directly  available 
than  I  had  hoped.  Emerson  says  of  himself  that 
he  "was  not  born  under  epistolary  stars  :  "  he  did 
not  readily  communicate  his  feelings  of  the  mo- 
ment, before  they  were  tried  and  sifted  by  reflec- 
tion ;  letter-writing  was  an  effort  to  him,  and  the 
effort  prevented  him  from  giving  to  his  letters  that 
direct  impress  of  his  personality  —  of  the  man, 
apart  from  the  author  —  which  we  look  to  find  in 
them.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  to  a  great 
extent  even  of  his  journals,  of  which  there  is  a  full 
series  from  his  college-days  onward  almost  to  the 
end  of  his  life :  they  do  not  often  bring  us  closer 
to  him  than  we  are  brought  by  his  published  writ- 
ings. I  have  been  obliged  to  dismember  and  re- 
arrange them  more  than  I  wished,  and  often  to 
give  their  general  drift  in  my  own  words,  instead 
of  simply  allowing  hini  to  tell  his  own  story. 

But  if  I  have  not  been  able  to  draw  from  these 
interior  sources,  or  from  a  minute  examination  of 
his  life,  much  of  first-rate  importance  to  add  to  our 


PREFACE.  V 

knowledge  of  Emerson,  I  have  been  entirely  free, 
on  the  other  hand,  from  the  gravest  embarrassment 
that  can  meet  the  biographer  of  a  man  of  letters 
who  aspired  to  be  a  public  teacher,  —  I  mean  the 
traces  of  a  discrepancy  between  the  teachings  and 
the  character.  Commenting  in  his  journal  on  the 
remark  of  a  friend,  that  no  one  would  dare  to  un- 
cover the  thoughts  of  a  single  hour,  Emerson  says : 
"  Is  it  so  bad  ?  I  own,  that  to  a  witness  worse  than 
myself,  and  less  intelligent,  I  should  not  willingly 
put  a  window  into  my  breast.  But,  to  a  witness 
more  intellectual  and  virtuous  than  I,  or  to  one 
precisely  as  intelligent  and  well-intentioned,  I  have 
no  objection  to  uncover  my  heart."  He  was  right ; 
he  could  only  have  gained  by  it. 

A  large  number  of  his  lectures,  including  some 
on  which  he  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  and  thought, 
remain  unpublished.  I  have  given  in  the  Appen- 
dix a  list  of  all  that  are  known  to  me,  with  short 
abstracts  of  most  of  them.  The  question  of  their 
publication  remains  for  the  present  undecided. 
My  own  impression  is  that  he  had  extracted  and 
used  most  of  what  he  would  have  cared  to  pub- 
lish. 

The  portrait  prefixed  to  the  first  volume  is  the 
gift  of  Dr.  William  Herbert  Rollins,  who  had  it 
engraved  under  .his  supervision  after  a  reduction 


vi  PREFACE. 

made  by  himself  from  the  well-known  photograph 
by  Hawes,  made,  Mr.  Hawes  thinks,  in  1856 :  the 
best  likeness  that  we  have  of  Emerson,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  and  here  admirably  reproduced. 

J.  E.  C. 

Nay,  1887. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  L 


CHAPTER  L 
BIRTHPLACE.  —  PARENTAGE.  —  BOYHOOD 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
COLLEGE-LIFE.  — SCHOOL-KEEPING. —  PROSPECTS      ...    50 

CHAPTER  III. 

PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.  —  TRIP  TO  THE  SOUTH. 
—  RETURN  HOME 100 

CHAPTER  IV. 

EMERSON  AT  THE  SECOND  CHURCH. —His  MARRIAGE.— 
THE  DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE.  —  RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  OF- 
FICE.—VISIT  TO  EUROPE 146 

CHAPTER  V. 
EUROPE 176 

CHAPTER  VI. 

RETURN  HOME.  —  THOUGHTS  OF  REFORM  IN  RELIGIOUS 
TEACHING.  —  DEATH  OF  HIS  BROTHER  EDWARD.  — 
FIRST  LECTURES.  —  SETTLES  IN  CONCORD 205 

CHAPTER  VII. 
TRANSCENDENTALISM .  244 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VHL 
CONCORD 268 

CHAPTER  IX. 
RELIGION 298 

CHAPTER  X. 
CONCOBD.  — VISITOBS  AND  FKIENDS 348 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

CHAPTER  I. 

BIRTHPLACE.  —  PARENTAGE.  —  BOYHOOD. 

1803-1817. 

THE  Reverend  William  Emerson,  minister  of  the 
First  Church  in  Boston,  addressing  his  people  on 
Sunday,  July  17,  1808,  upon  the  occasion  of  their 
quitting  their  old  meeting-house  in  the  heart  of 
the  town  for  one  "more  spacious  and  convenient" 
in  the  subui'bs,  remarked  that  they  broke  none  of 
the  commandments  of  Jesus  Christ  in  exchanging 
"  a  house  which  is  exposed  to  the  noise  and  dust  of 
a  publick  street,  for  one  which  is  remote  from  the 
busiriess  and  amusements  of  the  town."  And  on 
the  following  Thursday,  when  services  were  held 
for  the  first  time  in  the  new  building,  he  reminded 
them  to  be  thankful  that  "  in  place  of  an  ancient 
and  decaying  house,  situated  in  the  most  busy  and 
populous  part  of  the  town,  we  now  possess  this  new, 
commodious  and  beautiful  edifice,  where,  in  the 
silence  of  retirement,  yet  in  the  centre  of  the  ter- 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

ritory  of  the  metropolis,  we  may  worship  the  Lord 
our  God."  l 

The  First  Church  was  not  only  the  oldest  in 
Boston,  but  older  than  the  town  itself,  since  it  was 
gathered  and  "unbodied"  in  Charlestown,  under 
the  shade  of  a  tree,  before  Winthrop  and  his  asso- 
ciates crossed  the  river.  The  ancient  house  they 
were  leaving,  the  third  they  had  occupied,  was, 
when  it  was  built  (in  1713),  President  Porter 
says,2  the  most  expensive  and  elaborate  in  New 
England.  It  was  placed,  very  fitly  for  the  time, 
on  Cornhill  (now  Washington  Street),  where 
Rogers'  Building  now  stands,  not  far  from  the 
corner  of  State  Street.  But,  with  the  growth  of 
the  town,  Cornhill  was  getting  crowded  and  noisy, 
and  in  1808  the  proprietors  of  the  Old  Brick  (as 
the  meeting-house  was  called)  accepted  the  offer 
of  Mr.  Benjamin  Joy  to  build  for  them  a  new  meet- 
ing-house and  a  parsonage  of  brick,  and  also  three 
other  brick  dwelling-houses,  on  the  parish  land  in 
Summer  Street ;  receiving  in  return  the  Cornhill 
property  and  $13,500  in  cash. 

The  old  parish  house  was  a  gambrel-roofed 
wooden  building,  standing  in  the  middle  of  a  piece 
of  land  (near  an  acre  in  extent),  belonging  to  the 
church,  but  "  situate  [in  the  language  of  the  deed 

1  An  Historical  Sketch  of  the  First  Church  in  Boston.     By  Her. 
William  Emerson.     Boston,  1812  :  pp.  241,  251. 

2  New  England*,  May,  1883. 


BIRTHPLACE.  3 

from  Kichard  Hollingshead  and  Ann,  his  wife,  in 
1680]  at  the  southerly  end  of  the  town  of  Boston," 
namely,  on  Summer  Street,  where  is  now  the 
corner  of  Chauncy  Street,  near  half  a  mile  from 
the  meeting-house. 

In  this  house,  which  stood,  village-fashion,  back  — 
from  the  street,  in  an  orchard  and  garden  extend- 
ing down  to  where  Avon  Street  now  is,  with  a 
bordering  row  of  elms  and  Lombardy  poplars  on 
Summer  Street,  Ralph  Waldo,  the  fourth  child 
and  third  son  of  the  Reverend  William  and  Ruth 
(Haskins)  Emerson,  was  born,  on  the  25th  of 
May,  1803. 

One  who  should  seek  "  the  silence  of  retire- 
ment "  in  the  same  place  to-day  would  find  there 
but  little  contrast  in  this  respect  with  Washington 
Street ;  nor  would  he  find  it  easy,  unless  helped 
by  recollections  going  back  many  years,  to  imag-  — 
ine,  in  the  place  of  the  long  rows  of  lofty  ware- 
houses shutting  out  the  sky,  and  the  roaring  flood 
of  traffic  that  pours  between  them,  the  quiet,  open 
region  of  gardens  and  pastures,  sunny  in  winter 
and  shaded  in  summer,  in  the  midst  of  which 
Emerson's  childhood  was  passed.  "  As  late  as 
1815  [says  Mr.  Drake1]  there  was  a  pasture  of 
two  acres  on  Summer  Street,  and  the  tinkling  of 
cow-bells  was  by  no  means  an  unusual  sound  there. 

1  Old   Landmarks   and  Historic  Personages   of  Boston.      By 
Samuel  Adams  Drake.     Boston,  1873 :  p.  381. 


4  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

The  fine  old  estates  of  the  Geyers,  Coffins,  Rus- 
sells,  Barrells,  Lydes,  Prebles,  etc.,  were  covered 
with  orchards  and  gardens  ;  and  these  hospitable 
residents  could  set  before  their  guests  cider  of  their 
own  manufacture,  or  butter  of  their  own  making." 

"Yesterday  [Emerson  writes  in  his  journal, 
May  26,  1872],  my  sixty-ninth  birthday,  I  found 
myself  on  my  round  of  errands  in  Summer  Street, 
and,  though  close  on  the  spot  where  I  was  born, 
was  looking  into  a  street  with  some  bewilderment, 
and  read  on  the  sign  '  Kingston  Street '  with  sur- 
prise ;  finding  in  the  granite  blocks  no  hint  of 
Nath.  Goddard's  pasture  and  long  wooden  fence, 
and  so  of  my  nearness  to  my  native  corner  of 
Chauncy  Place.  It  occurred  to  me  that  few  living 
persons  ought  to  know  so  much  of  the  families  of 
this  fast-growing  city;  for  the  reason  that  aunt 
Mary,  whose  manuscripts  I  had  been  reading,  had 
such  a  keen  perception  of  character  and  taste  for 
aristocracy,  and  I  heard  in  my  youth  and  man- 
hood every  name  she  knew." 

The  Summer  Street  region,  even  as  I  remember 
it  twenty  years  later,  was  a  boy's  paradise,  and 
echoed  every  holiday  afternoon  and  mid-day  recess 
with  "  Coram  "  and  "  Hy-spy ; "  having  just  the 
right  admixture  of  open  ground,  fences,  and  thor- 
oughfares, with  intricacies  and  lurking-places  of 
sheds  and  wood-houses,  and  here  and  there  a  de- 
serted barn,  with  open  doors  and  a  remnant  of  hay 


BOYHOOD.  5 

long  untouched.  There  was  even  a  pond,  where  a 
beginner  might  try  his  first  skates ;  and  the  salt 
water  was  close  by,  with  wharves  where  he  might 
catch  flounders  and  torn-cod.  Then,  near  at  hand, 
the  Common,  at  that  time  a  playground  from  end 
to  end. 

But  Emerson  knew  none  of  these  things.  He 
never,  he  told  me,  had  a  sled,  and  would  not  have 
dared  to  use  one,  for  fear  of  the  "Round-Point- 
ers," —  rough  boys  from  Windmill  Point  and  the 
South  End,  who  "  were  always  coming ; "  taking 
Summer  Street  on  their  way  to  the  Common,  where 
they  had  pitched  battles  with  the  West-Enders. 
His  mother  had  cautioned  him  against  the  rude  — 
boys  in  the  street,  and  he  used  to  stand  at  the 
gate,  wistful  to  see  what  the  rude  boys  were  like. 

Somewhere  in  his  journals  he  speaks  of  a  time 
when  he  was  "  a  chubby  boy,  trundling  a  hoop  in 
Chauncy  Place,  and  spouting  poetry  from  Scott 
and  Campbell  at  the  Latin  School,"  but  I  find 
no  other  evidence  of  play  or  of  chubbiness.  "  We  - 
were  babies  and  boys  together,"  says  the  Reverend 
Dr.  William  Henry  Furness  in  some  precious  rec- 
ollections of  Emerson  with  which  he  has  favored 
me,  "  but  I  can  recall  but  one  image  of  him  as 
playing,  and  that  was  on  the  floor  of  my  mother's 
chamber.  I  don't  think  he  ever  engaged  in  boys' 
plays  ;  not  because  of  any  physical  inability,  but 
simply  because,  from  his  earliest  years,  he  dwelt  in 


6  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

a  higher  sphere.  My  one  deep  impression  is  that, 
from  his  earliest  childhood,  our  friend  lived  and 
moved  and  had  his  being  in  an  atmosphere  of  let- 
ters, quite  apart  by  himself.  I  can  as  little  re- 
member when  he  was  not  literary  in  his  pursuits 
as  when  I  first  made  his  acquaintance." 

And  Rufus  Dawes,  a  school-fellow  of  Emerson's 
at  the  Latin  School,  describes  him  as  a  "  spiritual- 
looking  boy  in  blue  nankeen,  .  .  .  whose  image 
more  than  any  other's  is  still  deeply  stamped  upon 
my  mind  as  I  then  saw  him  and  loved  him,  I  knew 
not  why,  and  thought  him  so  angelic  and  remark- 
able." i 

This  early  seriousness  naturally  found  favor  with 
»  his  elders  rather  than  with  those  of  his  own  age. 
"  When  I  was  thirteen  years  old  [he  writes  in  his 
journal  in  1839],  my  uncle  Samuel  Ripley  one  day 
asked  me,  *  How  is  it,  Ralph,  that  all  the  boys  dis- 
like you  and  quarrel  with  you,  whilst  the  grown 
people  are  fond  of  you?'  Now  I  am  thirty-six, 
and  the  fact  is  reversed :  the  old  people  suspect 
and  dislike  me,  and  the  young  people  love  me." 
The  explanation  lay  perhaps  in  a  certain  lofty  car- 
riage of  the  head,  —  the  air  of  one,  as  Dr.  Furness 
-  says,  dwelling  apart  in  a  higher  sphere,  —  some- 
times remarked  also  in  Edward  and  Charles,  and 
apt  to  be  mistaken  for  pride,  though  it  was  in 

1  "Boyhood  Memories:"  Boston  Miscellany,  February,  1843> 
p.  60. 


ANCESTRY,  7 

truth  quite  free  from  any  self -reference.  "  My 
grandfather,  William  [Emerson  says],  walking  be- 
fore his  father  to  church  on  a  Sunday,  his  father 
checked  him  :  '  William,  you  walk  as  if  the  earth 
was  not  good  enough  for  you.'  '  I  did  not  know 
it,  sir,'  he  replied  with  the  utmost  humility.  This 
is  one  of  the  household  anecdotes  in  which  I  have 
found  a  relationship." 

The  arrangement  with  Mr.  Joy  was  opposed  by- 
some  of  the  proprietors,  and  one  of  them,  Mr.  Ben- 
jamin Austin,  is  said  to  have  vented  his  feelings  in 
the  following  epigram  :  — 

"Farewell,  Old  Brick,  —Old  Brick,  farewell: 
You  bought  your  minister  and  sold  your  bell." 

The  taunt  about  the  minister  referred  to  another 
negotiation,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Reverend 
William  Emerson  had  been  transferred  from  the 
town  of  Harvard,  where  he  was  first  settled,  to 
Boston. 

William  Emerson  had  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  ' 
several  lines  of  "  painful  preachers  "  and  spiritual 
guides  of  the  people,  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
colony.  Far  from  being  "  comatose  "  persons,  as 
Mr.  James,  in  his  reminiscences  of  Emerson,1  calls 
them,  they  were,  several  of  them,  heroic  enthusi- 
asts, remarkably  alive  to  what  is  best  worth  living 

1  Literary  Remains  of  the  Late  Henry  James,  Edited  by  Wil- 
liam James.  Boston,  1885  :  p.  294. 


8  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

for.  One  line  has  for  its  first  representative  in 
America  the  Reverend  Peter  Bulkeley,  Rector  of 
Woodhill  or  Odell  in  Bedfordshire,  England,  and 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  —  a  man 
of  ancient  family  and  considerable  estate,  who,  be- 
ing silenced  by  Laud  for  non-conformity,  crossed 
the  sea  in  1634  to  New  England,  and  pushed  out 
through  the  woods  with  Major  Simon  Willard  to 
•  Musketaquid  (which  they  named  Concord),  and 
there  spent  most  of  his  fortune  as  a  pioneer  of 
civilization.  "  He  was  addressed  [says  Shattuck  l~\ 
as  father,  prophet,  and  counsellor  by  his  people  and 
by  all  the  ministers  of  the  country ; "  and  his  "  Gos- 
pel Covenant,"  one  of  the  first  books  published 
in  New  England,  has  good  counsel  for  the  present 
day.  The  Church,  he  says,  is  built  on  the  founda- 
tion of  prophets  and  apostles  ;  "  not  in  regard  of 
their  persons,  but  of  their  doctrine,"  —  a  sentiment 
which  finds  its  echo  in  the  Divinity  Hall  Address 
of  his  descendant  two  hundred  years  afterwards. 

His  granddaughter,  Elizabeth  Bulkeley,  married 
the  Reverend  Joseph  Emerson,  the  pioneer  minis- 
ter of  Mendon,  who  barely  escaped  with  his  life 
when  the  village  was  destroyed  by  the  Indians. 
Their  son,  Edward,  "  sometime  deacon  of  the  First 
Church  of  Newbury,"  married  Rebecca,  daughter 
of  Cornelius  Waldo,  "from  whom  [says  one  of 
her  descendants]  came  that  beloved  name  into  the 

i  History  of  Concord.     Boston,  1835:  p.  158. 


ANCESTRY.  9 

family."  Their  son,  the  Reverend  Joseph  Emer- 
son of  Maiden  (Harvard  College,  1717),  was  a  he- 
roic scholar,  "  the  greatest  student  in  the  country 
[says  his  granddaughter,  Mary  Moody  Emerson], 
and  left  a  library  considerable  for  those  days. 
He  was  a  reader  of  the  Iliad,  and  said  he  should 
be  sorry  to  think  that  the  men  and  cities  he  read 
of  never  existed.  If  it  had  not  been  for  iny 
grandmother,  my  father  would  have  been  killed, 
perhaps,  by  confinement,  for  his  father  thought  he 
ought  never  to  leave  his  lessons.  The  children  sat 
upon  a  settle,  with  lessons  or  catechism,  the  big- 
gest at  one  end,  the  next  in  size  at  the  other,  and 
the  little  one  in  the  middle.  For  out-door  relaxa- 
tion there  was  the  farm  work  ;  but  even  that  was 
grudged.  When  he  was  working  the  hay  one  after- 
noon, his  father  looked  out  of  the  window  and 
called,  '  Billy,  Billy,  it 's  a  waste  of  your  precious 
time  :  go  back  to  your  books.'  But  grandmother 
said, '  No,  it  does  him  good  to  work  a  little  :  he  has 
books  enough.'  They  all  believed  in  poverty,  and 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  uncle  John  of 
Topsfield,  who  had  a  grant  of  land,  and  was  rich. 
My  grandfather  prayed  every  night  that  none  of 
his  descendants  might  ever  be  rich.  My  father, 
after  he  left  college,  taught  school  in  Roxbury, 
then  preached  in  Concord,  was  settled  there,  and 
married  Phebe  Bliss.  Her  mother  was  Phebe 
Walker,  a  woman  such  as  I  have  read  about,  but, 


10  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

except  her,  never  seen.  She  never  fell  before 
affliction.  My  mother  reproached  her  with  want 
of  feeling  because  she  went  to  church  whilst  her 
husband  lay  dead  in  the  house.  But  she  was  rapt 
in  another  world." 

Miss  Emerson's  father,  of  whom  she  here  speaks, 
was  William  Emerson  of  Concord,  the  patriot  min- 

•  ister  of  the  Revolution.    He  was  the  son  of  Joseph 
of  Maiden,  the  scholar,  and  Mary  Moody,  daugh- 
ter of    the   Reverend   Samuel   Moody   ("Father 
Moody  "),  a  man  of  transcendent  zeal  in  doctrine 
and  practice.     "  In  every  town  in   Maine    [says 
Emerson  in  one  of  his  early  lectures]  you  may  still 
hear  of  the  charities  and  of  the  commanding  ad- 
ministration of  his  holy  office,  of  Father  Moody  of 
Agamenticus.     When   the   offended   parishioners, 
wounded  by  his  pointed  preaching,  would  rise  to 
go  out  of  church,  he  cried  out,  '  Come  back,  you 
graceless  sinner,  come  back  ! '    And  when  they  be- 
gan to  fall  into  ill  customs  and  ventured  into  the 
alehouse  on  a  Saturday  night,  the  valiant  pastor 
went  in  after  them,  collared  the  sinners,  dragged 
them  forth,  and  sent  them  home  with  rousing  ad- 
monitions.    Charity  then  went  hand  in  hand  with 
zeal.     They  gave  alms  profusely,  and  the  barrel  of 

•  meal  wasted  not."     He  gave  away  his  wife's  only 
pair  of  shoes  from  her  bedside  to  a  poor  woman 
who  came  to  the  house,  one  frosty  morning,  bare- 
foot.    When  his  wife,  thinking  to  restrain  a  pro. 


ANCESTRY.  11 

fuseness  of  almsgiving  which  his  scanty  salary 
could  ill  afford,  made  him  a  purse  that  could  not 
be  opened  without  a  tedious  manipulation,  he  gave 
away  purse  and  all  to  the  next  applicant. 

Samuel  Moody,  his  son-in-law  Joseph  Emer- 
son of  Maiden,  and  Daniel  Bliss  of  Concord  were 
prominent  supporters  of  Whitefield  and  his  revival 
in  1734  ;  invited  him  into  their  pulpits,  and  were 
thought  to  favor  his  doctrine  of  immediate  direc- 
tion by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

William  Emerson  of  Concord  (Harvard  College, 
1761)  was  the  builder  of  the  Old  Manse,  cele- 
brated by  Hawthorne ;  he  was  living  there  when  the 
British  troops  came  up  on  the  19th  of  April,  1775, 
and  wrote  an  account  of  the  skirmish  at  the  bridge, 
which  his  grandson  published  in  the  Appendix  to 
the  "  Historical  Discourse  at  Concord."  He  and 
his  brother,  the  Reverend  Joseph  Emerson  of  Pep- 
perell,  had  been  active  patriots  before  the  war.1 
He  preached  to  the  minute-men,  exhorting  them  to 
ready  obedience  to  discipline,  and  assuring  them 
that  their  resistance  to  invasion  of  their  constitu- 
tional rights  was  true  loyalty  to  "the  principles 
which  had  advanced  the  House  of  Hanover  to  its 
unrivalled  lustre."  In  August,  1776,  he  left  Con- 

*  It  is  said  their  zeal  carried  them  so  far  in  contravention  to 
the  prevailing  ideas  of  filial  reverence  that  they  rebuked  their 
mother  for  drinking  tea  at  the  time  of  the  general  agreement 
against  the  use  of  it. 


12  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

cord  to  join  the  army  at  Ticonderoga  as  chaplain, 
and  died  a  few  months  later,  of  camp-fever. 

His  wife  was  Phebe  Bliss  (his  "  Phebe-bird  "  he 
calls  her  in  one  of  his  letters),  daughter  of  the 
Reverend  Daniel  Bliss,  his  predecessor  in  the  Con- 
cord pulpit,  —  "a flame  of  fire "  his  son-in-law  calls 
him,  in  the  epitaph  on  his  tombstone  :  the  intro- 
ducer, says  Shattuck,  of  a  new  style  of  preaching, 
"  bold,  zealous,  impassioned,  enthusiastic,"  which 

-  brought  him  into  trouble  with  the  lukewarm  Ar- 
minianism  of  the  day. 

William  Emerson  of  Concord,  though  he  died 
at  thirty-three,  was  a  man  of  mark ;  a  fervent 
patriot  and  leader  in  the  patriotic  movement  of  the 
day,  as  well  as  an  eloquent  preacher.  "  A  public 
character  [says  Miss  Mary  Emerson,  his  daugh- 
ter], passing  the  old  church,  said,  '  There  I  first 

-  heard  eloquence.'  "     He  was  noted  for  his  beauti- 
ful reading  of  the  hymns,  and  he  seems  to  have 
had  much  of  his  father's  literary  tastes.     Writing 
to  his  wife  on  his  way  to  the  camp,  he  encloses 
some  verses,  and  says :   "  For  my  part,  I  'm  not 
sure,  but  for  that  old  mangier  of  words,  Mr.  Woos- 
ter,  I  should  have  been  a  considerable  poet ;  me- 
thinks  there  are  the  outlines  of  a  fine  rhymester 

-in  the  enclosed ;  and  you  must  try  to  think  so,  if 
it  is  only  to  gratify  my  vanity  and  please  the  chil- 
dren." 

In  William,  his  oldest  child  and  only  son  (as 


ANCESTRY.  13 

well  as  in  his  daughter,  Mary  Moody),  the  love  of 
good  letters  and  a  hunger  for  literary  society  were 
prominent  traits.  After  his  father's  death,  —  his 
mother  having  married  the  Reverend  Ezra  Ripley, 
and  another  set  of  children  growing  up  in  the  Con- 
cord Manse,  —  William  Emerson  the  second  was 
left  very  early  dependent  on  his  own  exertions.  He— 
went  through  the  usual  course  of  school-keeping, 
college  (Harvard  College,  1789),  school -keeping 
again ;  then,  after  a  few  months'  study  of  divinity 
at  Cambridge,  was  admitted  to  preach,  and,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  ordained  minister  of  Harvard, 
a  town  twelve  miles  from  Concord.  It  is  said  he 
had  no  predilection  for  the  ministry,  but  yielded* 
upon  hearing  Dr.  Ripley  pray  that  his  mother's 
strong  desire  that  he  should  be  a  minister  might 
be  fulfilled.  He  had  no  relish  for  the  country  se- 
clusion to  which  for  a  while,  at  least,  he  must  look 
forward.  "  The  situation  [he  writes  to  a  friend] 
is  apparently  too  circumscribed  and  remote  for 
present  gratification.  My  retirement  hides  me 
from  the  intercourse  of  all  humanized  beings ;  yet 
I  believe  Harvard,  on  the  whole,  is  the  most  eli- 
gible place,  at  present,  in  the  universe." 

He  was  not  entirely  cut  off  from  human  inter-  ^ 
course,  for  he  was  well   received  at  Mr.    Brom- 
field's,1  Squire  Kimball's,  Mrs.   Grosvenor's,  and 

1  Mr.  Bromfield  was  not  the  Squire  of  Harvard,  in  the  New 
England  sense,  but  the  Account  of  him  in  Mrs.  Quincy's  diary 


14  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

other  houses,  where  he  found  agreeable  society. 
And  he  seems  to  have  found  sympathizers  with  a 
taste  he  had  for  music,  for  he  reproaches  himself 
with  spending  too  much  time  in  singing  and  in 
playing  on  the  bass-viol,  an  instrument,  I  believe, 
not  used  for  solo  performance.  But  probably  there 
was  not  much  talk  of  books,  —  few  to  discuss  with 
him  the  literary  and  scientific  novelties  by  the  last 
ship  from  England.  Then,  with  his  meagre  salary, 
.he  was  "  too  poor  to  keep  a  horse,"  —  a  serious  ob- 
stacle in  those  days  to  intercourse  with  his  brother 
ministers.  He  was  decidedly  of  a  social  turn ;  too 
accessible,  he  thought,  and  in  danger  of  forgetting 
the  reserve  of  manner  that  belonged  to  his  cloth. 
He  reminds  himself  in  his  journal  "  to  be  more 
free  with  my  hat  and  less  with  my  hand."  Some 
extracts  from  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Grosvenor, 

seems  to  show  some  traits  of  the  English  squirarchy  still  surviv- 
ing in  New  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  century:  "Mr. 
Bromfield  and  his  surroundings  vividly  reminded  Mrs.  Quincv  of 
Addisou's  description  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  in  the  Spectator.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  she  must  be  on  a  visit  to  that  worthy  knight, 
—  especially  on  Sunday,  when,  equipped  with  a  red  cloak  and  a 
wig  surmounted  by  a  cocked  hat,  and  attended  by  his  negro  ser- 
vant Othello,  he  escorted  her  under  the  ancient  avenue  of  elms 
and  through  the  grave-yard  to  the  village  church.  Profound 
deference  and  respect  marked  the  passing  salutations  he  received, 
and,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  service,  the  whole  congregation  re- 
mained standing  in  their  pews  until  Mr.  Bromfield  and  his  guests 
had  walked  down  the  broad  aisle."  (Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Mrs. 
Eliza  S.  M.  Quincy.  Boston,  1861 :  p.  93.) 


ANCESTRY.  15 

the  widow  of  his  predecessor  at  Harvard,  while  he 
was  considering  the  invitation  to  settle  there,  may 
serve  to  paint  the  situation  of  the  young  candi- 
date :  — 

CONCORD,  January  28,  1792. 

MADAM,  —  How  checkered  is  life !  How  un- 
certain, how  various,  the  state  of  humanity !  At 
Harvard  my  days  flew  rapidly  away.  Charming 
variety  characterized  each  week.  While  the  hours 
of  day  wore  the  serious  aspect  of  study,  the  gay 
moments  of  eve  brought  humor  and  cheerfulness 
into  our  circle.  But  no  sooner  did  I  leave  your 
social  fire,  no  sooner  did  the  rocks  and  woods  of 
Harvard,  on  that  beautiful  morn,  disappear,  than 
cold  black  clouds  of  doubt  and  suspense  over- 
shadowed my  mind,  which,  ever  since,  hath  been 
the  sport  of  opinion  and  the  dupe  of  advice.  On 
the  Saturday  following,  I  broke  the  path  through 
pathless  woods  and  over  hills  of  everlasting  snow, 
to  Newbury.  At  night  I  supped  in  a  room  that 
was  not  warmed  with  more  fire  than  I  could  have 
comfortably  slept  with  in  my  bed.  Bed!  as  to 
that  I  will  say  nothing ;  for  my  weight  made  no 
more  impression  on  it  than  would  a  walnut^  which, 
I  imagine,  might  have  been  cracked  on  it  to  ad- 
vantage. In  the  morning,  frozen  to  death,  I  went 
to  their  meeting-house  ;  which,  for  age  and  de- 
formity, beggars  all  description.  When  I  was  in 
the  pulpit,  I  could  see  nothing  of  what  was  trans- 


16  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

acted  below;  and,  in  the  galleries,  nobody  ap- 
peared to  converse  with  me.  The  case  was  some- 
what remedied  when  I  took  the  stand ;  for  there  I 
made  shift  to  get  hold  of  the  cushion,  which,  as 
I  stood,  was  about  up  to  my  armpits.  Thus  ele- 
vated, I  peeked  over  and  made  many  discoveries 
among  the  people  scattered  hither  and  thither 
around  the  antiquated  walls.  What  was  wanting 
in  prospect,  however,  I  endeavored  to  supply  by 
my  vociferation,  and,  like  Jonah,  at  a  goodly  dis- 
tance I  proclaimed  the  terrors  of  the  law.  Tues- 
day and  Wednesday  I  have  been  freezing  along 
back.  This  is  the  day  appointed  [for  some  cere- 
mony at  Dr.  Bipley's  church  in  Concord],  and  lo ! 
the  winds  and  snow  seem  emulous  which  shall  con- 
tribute most  to  disappoint  my  pleasure,  or  throw 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  my  return.  Not  only  so, 
but  journeys,  horses,  and  stages  have  emptied  my 
pockets.  But,  you  say,  madam,  I  was  to  tell  you 
when  I  should  return,  and  with  what  aspect  I 
should  come.  Do  not  ask  me.  I  can  assure  you, 
Mrs.  Grosvenor,  so  far  as  this :  that  should  I  leave 
Harvard,  I  should  not  entertain  the  most  distant 
hope,  scarcely,  of  settling  at  Newbury,  were  it  ever 
so  agreeable.  The  people  are  amazingly  divided. 
They  are  old  and  they  are  crafty.  They  do  not 
keep  good  fires  at  Newbury.  They  keep  noble 
fires  at  Harvard.  Yes,  madam,  but  will  they  keep 
me  a  good  fire?  I  think  thirty  cords  of  wood 


ANCESTRY.  17 

would  be  as  pretty  a  supplement  to  this  little  paper 
in  my  pocket  as  they  could  possibly  publish,  I 
cannot,  however,  think  of  being  buried.  And  yet  a 
man  might  read  as  many  hours  in  a  day  at  Har- 
vard as  at  Newbury  or  any  other  place.  In  short, 
madam,  my  mind,  like  the  air  of  this  day,  is  torn 
by  constant  winds ;  I  scarcely  know  how  or  what 
to  think. 

He  decided  to  remain  at  Harvard,  upon  a  salary 
fixed  at  first  at  $333.30,  —  not  a  large  sum  even 
for  those  days,  and  constantly  diminishing  in  value 
with  the  progressive  depreciation  of  the  currency. 
I  suppose  he  had  no  rent  to  pay,  and  his  "  bene- 
factions," that  is,  presents  from  the  wealthier  pa- 
rishioners, —  a  leg  of  pork  from  Squire  Kimball,  a 
load  of  wood  from  Mr.  Bromfield,  "  the  outside  of 
my  gown  "  from  Mrs.  Grosvenor,  —  together  with 
wedding-fees,  might  add  perhaps  half  as  much. 
Still  it  was  but  a  small  pittance  for  a  man  who  felt- 
it  necessary  to  spend  sometimes  in  the  quarter-year 
more  than  his  quarter's  salary  on  books.  He  felt 
that  he  must  "  never  name  marriage  or  building." 
Nevertheless  I  find  in  his  diary  that  in  June,  1796, 
he  "  rode  out  with  Miss  R.  H.,  and  talked  with  her 
on  the  subject  of  matrimony ; "  and,  on  the  25th  of 
October,  "  was  married  to  the  pious  and  amiable 
Ruth  Haskins,  fifth  daughter  of  Mr.  John  Haskins 
of  Rainsford's  Lane  [Harrison  Avenue],  Boston," 


18  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

and  brought  her  home  to  a  farm  which  he  had 
bought  and  made  ready  a  few  months  before. 

Henceforward,  though  I  do  not  find  t\iat  his  wife 
brought  him  any  immediate  accession  of  fortune, 
all  complaints  of  poverty,  disquietude  about  debts, 
regret  at  his  want  of  frugality,  and  resolutions  "  to 
obtain  a  better  living  in  Harvard  or  go  elsewhere," 
disappear  from  his  journal ;  as  if  he  foresaw  the 
dawn  of  his  deliverance.  "  We  are  poor  and  cold, 
and  have  little  meal,  and  little  wood,  and  little 
meat,  but,  thank  God,  courage  enough." 

This  was  not  the  courage  of  heedlessness ;  he 
was  careful  and  methodical,  a  great  admirer  of 
order,  and  thrifty  except  in  the  article  of  books : 
it  was  an  unconquerable  buoyancy  of  disposition, 
that  would  not  let  him  believe  that  any  real  mis- 
fortune could  come  to  him.  Years  afterwards,  just 
before  his  death,  writing  almost  gaily  to  Dr.  Rip- 
ley  about  the  perplexities  of  the  physicians  over 
his  case,  he  says  :  "  You  will  think  me  better,  be- 
cause of  the  levity  with  which  this  page  is  blurred. 
Threads  of  this  levity  have  been  interwoven  with 
the  entire  web  of  my  life." 

Meanwhile,  he  did  not  idly  trust  in  Providence, 
•  but  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  sold  the  bass- 
viol,  took  boarders,  kept  school,  and  worked  with 
his  own  hands  on  the  farm.  After  many  rebuffs, 
and  even  being  "  reviled  at  town-meeting,"  he  at 
last  prevailed  upon  the  town  (then  the  same  per- 


ANCESTRY.  19 

sons  with  the  parish)  to  add  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  to  his  salary,  only  to  bring  it  up,  in  purchas- 
ing value,  to  what  it  had  been  at  first. 

At  length,  in  the  spring  of  1799,  the  deliverer 
appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  committee  of  the  First 
Church  of  Boston.  He  had  been  invited  to  preach 
there,  and  also  to  preach  the  annual  sermon  on  the 
solemn  occasion  of  choosing  officers  for  the  Ancient  - 
and  Honorable  Artillery  Company.  A  week  after- 
wards, a  committee  of  the  church  came  up  to 
sound  him  with  regard  to  a  removal  to  Boston,  and, 
receiving  some  encouragement,  addressed  a  letter 
to  the  Harvard  church,  requesting  his  release  from 
his  engagement  there.  In  this  letter  they  urge  as 
a  motive  for  compliance  that  "the  alarming  at- 
tacks upon  our  holy  religion,  by  the  Learned,  the 
Witty,  and  the  Wicked,  especially  in  populous 
and  seaport  towns,  call  aloud  to  invite  and  sup- 
port, in  the  places  of  most  eminence,  such  spiritual 
workmen  as  are  endowed  with  talents  to  convince— 
and  confound  the  Wicked  by  their  arguments, 
and  allure  them  by  their  amiable  behavior."  The 
Harvard  church  replied,  through  a  committee  ap- 
pointed in  town-meeting,  setting  forth  the  dangers 
and  inconveniences  of  a  step  so  novel  if  not  unpre- 
cedented, and  suggesting  that  in  case  of  compli- 
ance they  ought  to  receive  $1,300  by  way  of  com- 
pensation for  the  increased  taxes  which  the  pew- 
holders  might  be  compelled  to  pay.  Finally,  after 


20  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

a  negotiation  lasting  all  summer,  "  the  committee 
of  Harvard,"  writes  William  Emerson  in  his  jour- 
nal, "conclude  to  take  $1,000  and  let  me  go." 
He  preached  his  farewell  sermon  on  the  15th  of 
September,  and  entered  upon  his  duties  at  the  Old 
Brick  on  the  22d. 

The  test  of  sermons  being  the  effect  upon  those 
who  hear  them,  the  qualities  in  William  Emerson 
that  wrought  this  change  in  his  fortunes  may  be 
better  estimated,  perhaps,  through  the  accounts  of 
his  contemporaries  than  by  reading  the  Artillery- 
Election  discourse.  The  Reverend  Joseph  Stevens 
Buckminster,  in  his  funeral  sermon,  says  of  him : 
"  He  was  a  happy  example  of  that  correct  and  ra- 
tional style  of  evangelical  preaching  of  which  the 
yet  lamented  Clarke  [Emerson's  predecessor]  has 
left  so  fair  a  specimen."  The  Reverend  Dr.  John 
Pierce,  who  never  missed  an  Artillery-Election 
sermon  or  a  Thursday  lecture,  says : l  "  He  was 
considered  an  extraordinary  preacher;  he  had  a 
melodious  voice ;  his  elocution  was  remarkable  for 
distinctness,  yet  had  an  easy  flow.  In  prayer  he 
was  fluent,  but  his  expressions  were  often  too 
studied  for  a  common  audience.  His  sermons  were 
greatly  labored,  yet  very  perspicuous.  He  could 
not  endure  the  fashion,  which  at  times  prevails,  of 
writing  in  a  desultory  manner.  He  would  some- 

1  Sprague's  Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit,  viii.  243,  and  Dr. 
Pierce'8  MSS.  diary  in  the  library  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society. 


ANCESTRY.  21 

times  employ  words  which  were  not  common,  but 
he  was  particularly  desirous  that  they  should  be 
classical." 

All  accounts  agree  in  praising  his  voice  and  his 
skill  in  reading.  As  to  his  success  in  the  particu- 
lar task  for  which  he  was  summoned  to  the  First 
Church,  namely,  resistance  to  the  increasing  laxity 
in  religion,  the  question  involves,  the  previous  one, 
whether  the  cause  of  true  religion  at  the  time  and  • 
place  was  best  served  by  drawing  tighter  the  bonds 
of  orthodoxy  or  by  loosening  them  still  farther. 
And  whichever  way  this  point  might  be  decided, 
the  testimony  as  to  the  actual  tendency  of  his  doc- 
trine is  by  no  means  concordant.  Dr.  Pierce  speaks 
with  some  asperity  of  his  "  latitudinarianism ; " 
Dr.  Charles  Lowell,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not 
think  him  so  extreme  as  some  of  his  brethren.  It 
is  clear  from  what  he  writes  in  1806,  about  the 
middle  of  his  Boston  pastorate,  to  his  half-brother, 
Samuel  Blpley,  at  Washington,  that  he  was  no 
stickler  for  forms  and  dogmas  :  — 

"  If  I  had  not  left  Harvard  for  Boston,  it  was  • 
my  intention  to  leave  it  for  Washington,  where  I 
designed  to  plant  a  church  strictly  on  congrega- 
tional principles ;  in  which  there  was  to  be  no  writ- 
ten expression  of  faith,  no  covenant,  and  no  sub- 
scription whatever  to  articles,  as  a  term  of  com- 
munion. It  was  my  plan,  and  still  would  be,  in 
forming  a  new  church,  to  administer  the  rituals  of 


22  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Christianity  to  all  who  would  observe  them,  with- 
out any  profession  except  such  observance." 

In  personal  appearance,  Dr.  Lowell  says  he  was 
"  a  handsome  man,  rather  tall,  of  fair  complexion, 
with  cheeks  slightly  tinted;  his  motions  easy, 
graceful,  and  gentlemanlike;  his  manners  bland 
and  pleasant.  He  was  an  honest  man,  and  ex- 
pressed himself  decidedly  and  emphatically,  but 
never  bluntly  or  vulgarly." 

Upon  his  acceptance  of  their  call,  the  First 
Church  voted  "  that  Mr.  Emerson  receive,  for  his 
encouragement  and  support,  at  the  rate  of  fourteen 
dollars  per  week ;  also  the  parish  dwelling-house, 
and  twenty  cords  of  wood."  This  provision  was 
gradually  raised,  until,  in  1809,  it  was  fixed  at 
twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  and  thirty  cords  of 
"•wood.  To  the  parish  dwelling-house  was  attached, 
as  I  have  said,  a  garden,  in  which  the  minister 
planted  his  potatoes,  sweet-corn,  and  peas,  as  he 
had  done  at  Harvard. 

The  Boston  salary,  modest  enough  when  meas- 
ured by  the  standards  of  the  present  day,  afforded 
the  means  for  a  more  unencumbered  style  of  liv- 
ing, and  even  for  gradually  discharging  some  debts 
that  he  had  brought  with  him,  though  hardly  for 
making  any  provision  for  the  future.  He  went  a 
good  deal  into  society,  —  "  dined  abroad  "  and 
"  had  company  "  are  frequent  entries  in  his  diary ; 
and  he  sometimes  complains  that  these  agreeable 


ANCESTRY.  23 

avocations  consumed  too  much  of  his  time.  But 
the  desire  for  congenial  companionship  was  strong 
in  him,  and  for  this  the  little  provincial  metropolis 
afforded  fair  opportunity.  The  scholarship  that 
some  of  the  early  immigrants  brought  with  them 
had  mostly  died  out,  but  the  love  of  good  letters 
still  remained,  and  it  was  beginning  to  feel  its  way 
towards  some  expression.  The  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society  had  lately  been  founded,  and  had 
encouraged  "  the  establishment  of  a  weekly  paper, 
to  be  called  the  American  Apollo,  in  which  will  be 
given  the  result  of  their  inquiries  into  the  natural, 
political,  and  ecclesiastical  history  of  this  country."  1 
Mr.  Emerson  was  an  active  member  of  the  society ; 
and  also  "converses  about  the  Physiological  So- 
ciety," —  which  holds  its  first  meeting  (as  the 
Philosophical  Society)  December  10,  1801,  at  Dr. 
James  Jackson's. 

"April  9th,  lecture  before  the  Philosophical  So- 
ciety, and  break  two  phials."  In  1803,  "  The  Phi- 
losophical Society  wonderfully  flourishes.  Thank 
God  that  this  child  of  my  brain  is  fostered,  and 
promises  to  grow  to  mature  age." 

His  chief  literary  enterprise,  however,  was  the 
Monthly  Anthology,  with  its  foster-child  the  Bos- 
ton AthenaBum.  He  took  charge  of  the  Anthol- 
ogy in  1804,  six  months  after  its  first  establish- 
ment, and  called  in  aid  a  number  of  his  friends, 
1  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  vol.  L 


24  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

sixteen  in  all,  forming  the  Anthology  Club,  which 
met  once  a  week  to  project  and  discuss  (with  a 
modest  supper)  articles  for  the  magazine.  Dr. 
John  Sylvester  John  Gardiner,  Rector  of  Trinity 
Church,  was  the  first  President;  William  Emer- 
son, Vice-President ;  several  of  the  members  were 
Liberal  ministers ;  all  were  liberal  in  sentiment, 
—  but  all  doubtless  good  Federalists.  Mrs.  Lee,  in 
her  memoir  of  the  Buckminsters,  says  that  the  Bos- 
ton ladies  would  not  invite  company  on  Anthology 
evening,  because  it  robbed  them  of  the  presence  of 
the  most  agreeable  gentlemen.  The  society,  says 
President  Quincy,1  "  maintained  its  existence  with 
reputation  for  about  six  years,  and  issued  ten  oc- 
tavo volumes  from  the  press ;  constituting  one  of 
the  most  lasting  and  honorable  monuments  of  the 
taste  and  literature  of  the  period."  And  so  it  is, 
for  it  shows  a  proportion  of  scholarly  men  among 
the  busy  lawyers,  doctors,  and  merchants  of  the  lit- 
tle town,  hardly  equalled  since.  We  find  in  it 
literary  essays  by  Judge  Parsons,  Daniel  Web- 
ster, Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow,  Dr.  John  Collins  War- 
ren, Dr.  James  Jackson,  James  Perkins ;  poems 
of  Judge  Story  and  John  Quincy  Adams ;  as  well 
as  literary  contributions  of  scholars  and  of  cler- 
gymen of  various  faiths,  among  them  Cheverus, 
the  Eoman  Catholic  bishop.  The  tone  of  the  An- 
thology was  very  liberal  in  religion,  but  conser- 
1  History  of  the  Boston  Athenceum,  Boston,  1851,  p.  3. 


ANCESTRY.  25 

vative  in  politics  and  in  literature;  aiming,  one 
of  the  writers  said,  "  to  apply  caustic  and  lancet 
to  the  disorders  of  the  American  press,"  and 
stoutly  opposed  to  the  new  school  of  poetry  in 
England.  Scott  was  eagerly  welcomed,  and  ex- 
tracts are  given,  in  advance  of  re-publication,  from 
his  poems ;  but  to  Coleridge  Dr.  Gardiner  applies 
the  epithet  "  asinine,"  and  he  speaks  of  "  the  dull 
malignity  "  of  Southey. 

Of  yet  more  lasting  importance  was  the  collec- 
tion of  books  begun  by  the  Club,  on  Mr.  Emer- 
son's motion,  and  growing  into  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum Library.  Already  at  Harvard  he  had 
started  a  public  library,  to  which  he  gave  his  ser- 
vices as  librarian ;  and  when  the  new  meeting- 
house was  built  in  Chauncy  Place  he  persuaded  the 
church  to  form  a  theological  library  in  the  vestry. 

With  his  social  and  literary  activities  and  dis- 
tinctions he  had  his  share  of  the  public  honors  that 
came  naturally  to  a  prominent  member  of  the  New 
England  aristocracy,  the  class  held  in  honor  apart 
from  wealth  or  political  station.  He  was  Fourth- 
of-July  orator  in  1802,  chaplain  of  the  State  Sen- 
ate (in  1803)  and  of  the  Ancient  and  Honorable 
Artillery  Company,  overseer  of  Harvard  College, 
a  guest  of  the  town  authorities  on  all  great  occa- 
sions, besides  being  invited  to  join  them  when  they 
refreshed  themselves  with  an  excursion  in  the  har- 
bor, and  visited  the  forts,  or  landed  on  Lovell's 
Island  for  a  game  of  quoits. 


26  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

His  sister,  Mary  Moody  Emerson,  who  had  in 
her  more  of  the  tense  Moody  fibre,  —  though  she 
sympathized  with  his  literary  tastes,  wrote  for  the 
Anthology,  and  was  drawn  to  his  house  in  Bos- 
ton from  time  to  time  by  her  "desire  to  hear  the 
men  talk,"  —  did  not  fail  to  warn  him  in  her  let- 
ters that  these  "  tributes  to  fashion  and  parade  are 
hostile  to  the  perpetual  claims  of  simplicity,  reason, 
and  piety."  She  feared  that  the  "  sultry  air  and 
diet  of  the  town  have  dimmed  the  light  of  genius," 
and  that  "  the  present  world  is  too  real  to  you." 
It  was  indeed  very  real  to  him  :  "  an  ample  and 
beautiful  world,"  he  writes  in  his  diary,  "  in  which 
there  has  been  afforded  to  me  on  earth  a  pleasant 
lot  and  much  happiness,  many  worthy  friends  and 
such  delightful  contemplations." 

No  shadow  came  over  his  life,  except  the  deaths 
of  two  children  (Phebe  Ripley,  born  at  Harvard, 
died  1800  at  Boston  ;  and  John  Clarke,  died  1807), 
until  in  the  spring  of  1811,  the  twelfth  year  of  his 
ministry  at  the  First  Church,  "  a  consuming  ma- 
rasmus," vainly  combated  for  some  months,  cut  it 
short  at  the  age  of  forty-two  (May  12,  1811). l 

A  short  time  before  his  death  he  says  in  a  letter 
to  his  sister  Mary  :  — 

"  To  my  wife  and  children,  indeed,  my  continu- 

i  His  comrades  of  the  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery  Com- 
pany attended  the  funeral  under  arms.  Emerson  well  remem. 
bered  his  delight  at  the  military  pomp. 


ANCESTRY.  27 

ance  upon  earth  is  a  matter  of  moment ;  as,  in  the 
event  of  my  decease,  God  only  knows  how  they 
would  subsist.  And  then  the  education  of  the  lat- 
ter !  But  I  am  not  oppressed  with  this  solicitude. 
Our  family,  you  know,  have  so  long  been  in  the 
habit  of  trusting  Providence,  that  none  of  them 
ever  seriously  thought  of  providing  a  terrestrial 
maintenance  for  themselves  and  households." 

It  was  in  truth  a  heavy  burden  that  fell  upon  the 
widow  in  her  affliction,  with  scanty  means  of  sup- 
port, and  six  children,  all  under  ten  years  of  age. 
After  the  first  two,  above  mentioned,  there  had 
been  born  to  them  William,  1801 ;  Ralph  Waldo, 
May  25,  1803 ;  at  which  date  the  following  entry 
appears  in  his  father's  diary  :  — 

"  Mr.  Puffer  preached  his  Election  Sermon  to 
great  acceptance.  This  day  also,  whilst  I  was 
at  dinner  at  Governor  Strong's,  my  son  Ralph- 
Waldo  was  born.  Mrs.  E.  well.  Club  at  Mr. 
Adams'." 

Afterwards,  three  sons:  Edward  Bliss  (1805), 
Robert  Bulkeley  (1807),  Charles  Chauncy  (1808)  ; 
and  a  daughter,  Mary  Caroline  (1811,  died  1814). 

The  First  Church  did  their  part :  they  continued 
the  minister's  salary  to  his  widow  for  six  months, 
and  then  voted  to  pay  her  five  hundred  dollars  a 
year  for  seven  years,  and  also  to  give  her  the  use 
of  the  parish  house  for  a  year  and  a  half,  unless 
the  society  should  have  occasion  for  it  for  parish 


28  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

purposes.     She  remained  there,  in  fact,  more  than 

three  years. 

With  this  aid,  and  with  the  occasional  assistance 
of  "  kind  friends,"  she  managed  to  keep  the  house- 
hold together  in  Boston  until  the  older  boys  began 
to  earn  their  living.  She  would  have  preferred  a 
less  expensive  place ;  but  the  children  must  be 
educated,  —  "  they  were  born  to  be  educated,"  their 
aunt  Mary  said.  Some  of  them,  at  least,  their 
mother  hoped  would  be  ministers ;  at  any  rate,  they 
must  be  kept  within  reach  of  the  Latin  School  and 

-  of  Harvard  College.  And  this  she  accomplished, 
though  with  sore  travail.  She  took  boarders  into 
her  house,  rose  early  and  sat  up  late,  doing  much 
of  the  work  herself,  with  the  help  of  the  children 
as  they  grew  old  enough,  and  with  occasional  aid 
from  her  sister-in-law,  Miss  Mary  Emerson  ;  and  so 
kept  the  wolf  from  the  door,  though  never  far  off. 
William,  the  oldest  son,  writing  to  his  mother  in 
after-years,  when  these  straits  were  past,  says :  — 

"  Our  circumstances  have  been  such  that  the  in- 
crease of  expense  which  would  necessarily  have  at- 
tended upon  the  sickness  of  any  one  of  us  might 
have  reduced  us  to  real  distress.  We  have  never 
suffered  this." 

It  was  only  escaped  by  unremitting  exertion  and 

—  a  frugality  that  left  its  mark  in  many  ways  upon 
the  growing  boys.  A  friend  of  the  family  (Mrs. 
Ripley),  coming  in  one  day,  found  them  without 


BOYHOOD.  29 

food,  and  Miss  Emerson  consoling  them  with 
stories  of  heroic  endurance.  Ralph  (as  he  was 
then  called)  and  Edward  had  but  one  great-coat 
between  them,  and  had  to  take  turns  in  going  with- 
out, and  in  bearing  the  taunts  of  vulgar-minded 
school-fellows  inquiring :  "  Whose  turn  is  it  to 
wear  the  coat  to-day  ?  " 

The  boys  did  much  of  the  housework,  and  had 
but  little  opportunity  for  play  or  relaxation  of  any 
kind.  Nothing  in  the  way  of  relaxation,  to  be  sure, 
entered  much  into  the  plan  of  life  of  these  excel- 
lent women.  If  the  boys  had  any  time  to  spare,  it 
might  be  better  employed  than  in  mere  amuse- 
ment. They  might  be  reading  good,  improving 
books,  such  as  Whelpley's  Historical  Compend,  or 
Jebb's  Sermons,  or  even  Rollin  or  Robertson.  A 
constant  intellectual  stimulus  was  added  to  that  of 
outward  circumstances.  Their  father,  in  the  midst 
of  his  various  activities,  never  neglected  their  les- 
sons. During  a  short  absence  from  home  he  writes 
to  his  wife :  "  William  [aged  five]  will  recite  to 
you  as  he  does  to  me,  if  you  have  leisure  to  hear 
him,  a  sentence  of  English  grammar  before  break- 
fast, —  though  I  think,  if  only  one  can  be  attended 
to,  Ralph  [aged  three]  should  be  that  one."  And 
he  "  hopes  that  John  Clarke  [aged  seven]  can  re- 
peat passages  from  Addison,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Pope,  etc." 

The  tradition  was  kept  up  by  their  aunt,  Mary 


30  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Moody  Emerson,  a  remarkable  person,  of  whom 
her  nephew  has  left  a  sketch,1  somewhat  softened 
by  the  veneration  in  which  he  never  ceased  to  hold 
her.  She  united  with  the  Moody  enthusiasm  and 
impetuosity  and  a  good  share  of  Puritan  rigor  a 
keen  appreciation  of  modern  ideas.  In  one  of  his 
letters,  long  afterwards,  when  she  had  quarrelled 
with  him  for  his  "high,  airy  speculations,"  and 
would  not  see  him  or  even  come  into  the  town 
where  he  was,  he  writes :  — 

"  Give  my  love  to  her,  —  love  and  honor.  She 
must  always  occupy  a  saint's  place  in  my  house- 
hold ;  and  I  have  no  hour  of  poetry  or  philosophy, 
since  I  knew  these  things,  into  which  she  does  not 
enter  as  a  genius." 

She  was  a  very  strange  saint,  and  exemplified 
the  exaltation  of  faith  over  works  to  an  extent  that 
made  her  hard  to  live  with.  She  idolized  her 
nephews,  set  no  bounds  to  her  expectations  from 
them,  and  showed,  particularly  when  they  were  at 
a  distance,  a  tender  affection,  —  which,  however,  did 
not  prevent  her  from  turning  upon  the  least  ap- 
pearance of  weakness  with  the  bitterest  scoffs ;  and 
her  imperious  temper  could  tolerate  no  difference 
in  opinion,  even  when  she  could  not  help  secretly 
respecting  it.  This  made  her  an  uncomfortable  in- 
mate, —  uncomfortable  to  herself  as  to  others.  Em- 

1  Collected  Writings,  x.  373.  The  references  to  Mr.  Emerson's 
writings  are  uniformly  to  the  Riverside  edition. 


BOYHOOD.  31 

erson  wrote  of  her :  "  She  tramples  on  the  com- 
mon humanities  all  day,  and  they  rise  as  ghosts 
and  torment  her  at  night."  And  she  says  of  her- 
self :  "  I  love  to  be  a  vessel  of  cumbersomeness  to 
society."  Yet  her  genuine  and  habitual  elevation 
of  view,  her  really  superior  mind,  and  her  keen 
sensibility  to  every  kind  of  merit  made  her  a  com- 
manding influence  in  their  lives. 

"  And  so,  though  we  flout  her  and  contradict  her 
and  compassionate  her  whims,  we  all  stand  in  awe 
of  her  penetration,  her  indignant,  eloquent  con- 
science, her  poetic  and  commanding  reason." 

"  I  doubt  [he  writes  upon  another  occasion]  if 
the  interior  of  spiritual  history  in  New  England 
could  be  trulier  told  than  through  the  exhibition 
of  family  history  such  as  this :  the  picture  of  this 
group  of  M.  M.  E.  and  the  boys,  mainly  Charles. 
The  key  to  her  life  is  in  the  conflict  of  the  new 
and  the  old  ideas  in  New  England.  The  heir  of 
whatever  was  rich  and  profound  and  efficient  in 
thought  and  emotion  in  the  old  religion  which 
planted  and  peopled  this  land,  she  strangely  united 
to  this  passionate  piety  the  fatal  gift  of  penetra- 
tion, a  love  of  philosophy,  an  impatience  of  words ; 
and  was  thus  a  religious  skeptic.  She  held  on  w 
both  hands  to  the  faith  of  the  past  generation, 
to  the  palladium  of  all  that  was  good  and  hopeful 
in  the  physical  and  metaphysical  worlds ;  and  in 
all  companies  and  on  all  occasions,  and  especially 


32  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

with  these  darling  nephews  of  her  hope  and  pride, 
extolled  and  poeticized  this  beloved  Calvinism. 
Yet  all  the  time  she  doubted  and  denied  it,  and 
could  not  tell  whether  to  be  more  glad  or  sorry  to 
find  that  these  boys  were  irremediably  born  to  the 
adoption  and  furtherance  of  the  new  ideas.  She 
reminds  me  of  Margaret  Graeme,  the  enthusiast  in 
Scott's  '  Abbot,'  who  lives  to  infuse  into  the  young 
Roland  her  enthusiasm  for  the  Roman  Church,  — 
only  that  our  Margaret  doubted  while  she  loved. 
Milton  and  Young  were  the  poets  endeared  to  the 
generation  she  represented.  Of  Milton  they  were 
proud ;  but  I  fancy  their  religion  has  never  found 
so  faithful  a  picture  as  in  the  'Night  Thoughts.' 
These  combined  traits  in  M.  M.  E.'s  character  gave 
the  new  direction  to  her  hope  that  these  boys 
should  be  richly  and  holily  qualified  and  bred  to 
purify  the  old  faith  of  what  narrowness  and  error 
adhered  to  it,  and  import  all  its  fire  into  the  new 
age.  Such  a  gift  should  her  Prometheus  bring  to 
men.  She  hated  the  poor,  low,  thin,  unprofitable, 
unpoetical  humanitarians,  and  never  wearies  with 
piling  on  them  new  terms  of  slight  and  weariness." 
To  the  boys,  from  their  childhood  up,  she  was  an 
ever-present  embodiment  of  the  Puritan  conscience ; 
at  their  side,  or  in  searching  letters,  when  her  dis- 
-  gust  at  the  town  and  at  her  own  outbursts  drove 
her  away  to  her  country  solitude,  yet  also  a  con- 
stant stimulus  to  go  beyond  the  Puritan  limita. 


BOYHOOD.  33 

tions,  which  she  would  allow  no  one  to  praise  but 
herself.  And  the  conflict  in  her  own  life  no  doubt 
communicated  itself  in  some  degree  to  theirs.  Her 
ambition  for  them  was  above  all  thought  for 
worldly  success,  and  she  was  prompt  to  jeer  at  any 
symptom  of  "a  frivolous  desire  for  fame,"  or  of 
"  sensitiveness  to  the  sympathies  of  society."  Yet, 
as  her  brother  William  had  felt  obliged  to  admon- 
ish her,  she  was  not  without  "  a  plentiful  share  of 
family  pride ;  "  which  showed  itself,  as  he  com — 
plains,  in  "  the  gentle  insinuation  that  my  name  is 
never  to  be  splendid.  It  is  not  enough  that  your 
relatives  should  be  good  husbands  and  wives,  good 
neighbors  and  friends,  but  they  must  be  called  of 
men  Rabbis  and  Fathers." 

Her  secret  dream  was  that  her  beloved  nephews 
should  be  intellectual,  learned,  poetical,  eloquent ; 
honored  of  men  and  the  darlings  of  "  the  world  " 
of  Boston,  that  they  might  bear  it  up  into  a  higher 
atmosphere.  They  were  born  to  distinction,  that 
was  plain ;  but  it  must  be  laid  as  a  worthy  offering 
on  the  altar  of  religion. N> 

Meanwhile,  her  counsels  of  perfection  for  both 
worlds  helped  to  bring  a  strain  upon  these  delicate 
organizations  which  they  could  ill  endure.  In  the— 
two  elder  it  was  alleviated  by  a  certain  impassivity 
of  temperament  and  an  admixture  (in  Ralph,  at 
least)  of  what  their  father  called  "levity,"  and 
Ralph  afterwards,  in  his  college  days,  "  silliness," 


34  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

we  may  call  it  humor,  —  the  habit  of  detaching 

his  impressions  from  himself,  and  looking  at  them 
from  the  outside,  as  a  by-stander.  Possibly,  in  his 
case,  seclusion  from  the  companionships  and  the 
pastimes  of  boyhood  may  have  supplied  a  needed 
check  to  what  he  calls,  in  one  of  his  early  jour- 
nals, "my  cardinal  vice  of  intellectual  dissipa- 
tion : "  any  way,  he  appears  to  have  thought  so. 
For  Edward  and  Charles,  at  all  events,  the  concen- 
tration was  not  needed ;  and  "  the  iron  band  of 
poverty,  of  necessity,  of  austerity  "  (of  which  he 
speaks  in  the  essay  on  "Domestic  Life"),1  together 
with  "  the  pressure  of  I  know  not  how  many 
—  literary  atmospheres,"  which  Dr.  Furness  found 
there,  we  may  well  suppose  intensified  into  disease 
what  was  already  intense  enough.  In  Ralph's 
case  the  drawback  came  in  another  shape.  Want 
of  "  that  part  of  education  which  is  conducted 
in  the  nursery  and  the  playground,  in  fights  and 
frolics,  in  business  and  politics,"  —  leaving  him 
without  the  help  of  the  free-masonries  which  these 
things  establish,  —  no  doubt  exaggerated  the  ideal- 
ist's tendency  to  fence  himself  off  from  contact 
with  men,  and  made  it  an  effort  for  him  in  after- 
life to  meet  them  on  common  terms  in  every-day 
intercourse. 

For  better  or  worse  they  were  thrown  upon  them- 
selves ;  partly  from  the  austere  fashion  of  domestic 
1  Collected  Writings,  vii.  117. 


BOYHOOD.  35 

intercourse  in  those  days.  Their  father  appears  to 
have  been  a  kindly,  affectionate  man,  but  Ralph's 
chief  recollection  of  him  was  as  "  a  somewhat  social 
gentleman,  but  severe  to  his  children,  who  twice  or 
thrice  put  me  in  mortal  terror  by  forcing  me  into 
the  salt  water,  off  some  wharf  or  bathing-house  ; 
and  I  still  recall  the  fright  with  which,  after  some 
of  these  salt  experiences,  I  heard  his  voice  one 
day  (as  Adam  that  of  the  Lord  God  in  the  gar-  — 
den)  summoning  me  to  a  new  bath,  and  I  vainly 
endeavoring  to  hide  myself." 

Even  his  mother,  the  most  loving  of  women,  was 
so  far  from  making  them  feel  her  tenderness  that 
once,  when  he  and  William  had  wandered  off  upon 
some  holiday  and  spent  the  day  away  from  home, 
they  were  much  surprised,  on  their  return,  at  her 
exclaiming :  "  My  sons,  I  have  been  in  an  agony  for 
you  !  "  "I  went  to  bed,"  he  says,  "  in  bliss  at  the 
interest  she  showed." 

A  letter  from  Ralph,  when  he  was  about  ten 
years  old,  to  his  aunt  Mary,  gives  account  of  one 
of  their  days  :  — 

BOSTON,  April  16,  1813. 

DEAR  AUNT,  —  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for 
your  kind  letter.  I  mean  now  to  give  you  an  ac- 
count of  what  I  do  commonly  in  one  day,  if  that  is 
what  you  meant  by  giving  an  account  of  one  single 
day  in  my  life.  Friday,  9th,  I  choose  for  the  day 
of  telling  what  I  did.  In  the  Morning  I  rose,  as  1 


36  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

commonly  do,  about  five  minutes  before  six.  I  then 
help  Wm.  in  making  the  fire,  after  which  I  set  the 
table  for  Prayers.  I  then  call  mamma  about  quar- 
ter after  six.  We  spell  as  we  did  before  you  went 
away.  I  confess  I  often  feel  an  angry  passion 
start  in  one  corner  of  my  heart  when  one  of  my 
Brothers  gets  above  me,  which  I  think  sometimes 
they  do  by  unfair  means,  after  which  we  eat  our 
breakfast;  then  I  have  from  about  quarter  after 
seven  till  eight  to  play  or  read.  I  think  I  am  rather 
inclined  to  the  former.  I  then  go  to  school,  where 
I  hope  I  can  say  I  study  more  than  I  did  a  little 
while  ago.  I  am  in  another  book  called  Virgil,  and 
our  class  are  even  with  another  which  came  to  the 
Latin  School  one  year  before  us.  After  attending 
this  school  I  go  to  Mr.  Webb's  private  school, 
where  I  write  and  cipher.  I  go  to  this  place  at 
eleven  and  stay  till  one  o'clock.  After  this,  when 
I  come  home  I  eat  my  dinner,  and  at  two  o'clock  I 
resume  my  studies  at  the  Latin  School,  where  I  do 
the  same  except  in  studying  grammar.  After  I 
come  home  I  do  mamma  her  little  errands  if  she 
has  any ;  then  I  bring  in  my  wood  to  supply  the 
breakfast  room.  I  then  have  some  time  to  play 
and  eat  my  supper.  After  that  we  say  our  hymns 
or  chapters,  and  then  take  our  turns  in  reading  Rol- 
lin,  as  we  did  before  you  went.  We  retire  to  bed 
at  different  times.  I  go  at  a  little  after  eight,  and 
retire  to  my  private  devotions,  and  then  close  my 


BOYHOOD.  37 

eyes  in  sleep,  and  there  ends  the  toils  of  the  day. 
...  I  have  sent  a  letter  to  you  in  a  Packet  bound 
to  Portland,  which  I  suppose  you  have  not  received, 
as  you  made  no  mention  of  it  in  your  letter  to 
mamma.  Give  my  love  to  Aunt  Haskins  and 
Aunt  Ripley,  with  Robert  and  Charles  and  all  my 
cousins,  and  I  hope  you  will  send  me  an  answer  to 
this  the  first  opportunity,  and  believe  me,  I  remain 
your  most  dutiful  Nephew, 

E.  WALDO  EMERSON. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
household,  with  all  its  austerities,  was  a  gloomy 
one.  There  was  in  the  mother  a  native  serenity 
that  nothing  could  deeply  disturb.  "  Her  mind  and 
her  character,"  says  Dr.  N.  L.  Frothingham,1 "  were 
of  a  superior  order,  and  they  set  their  stamp  upon 
manners  of  peculiar  softness  and  natural  grace  and 
quiet  dignity.  Her  sensible  and  kindly  speech  was  • 
always  as  good  as  the  best  instruction ;  and  her 
smile,  though  it  was  always  ready,  was  a  reward. 
Her  dark,  liquid  eyes,  from  which  old  age  could 
not  take  away  the  expression,  will  be  among  the 
remembrances  of  all  on  whom  they  ever  rested." 
Her  sister-in-law,  Mary  Emerson,  who,  as  she  says 
of  herself,  "  was  never  patient  with  the  faults  of 
the  good,"  says  of  her :  — 

"  When  first  she  grew  up,  I  knew  her  to  be 

1  Christian  Examiner,  January,  1854. 


38  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSOX. 

without  comparison.  I  continued  to  see  her  for 
some  years,  and  thought  her  looks,  words,  actions, 
the  sweetest,  wisest,  fittest,  chastest  of  all.  ...  In 
a  new  situation  [after  her  marriage],  she  sustained 
any  occasional  trial  of  temper  with  a  dignity  and 
firmness  and  good  sense  that  I  shall  ever  respect, 
and  obtained  a  greater  influence  than  is  common 
over  one  of  the  best  of  husbands.  Since,  in  the 
trials  of  boarders,  the  most  I  could  say  would  not 
be  too  much." 

And  in  the  younger  members  of  the  household 
there  was  a  buoyancy  of  spirit  that  seemed,  to  their 
stern  aunt  Mary,  excessive  ;  their  mirth  and  fri- 
volity, she  feared,  "had  too  much  influence  even 
with  their  mother,  and  made  her  too  often  a  party 
"  to  folly."  Their  cousin,  George  Barrell  Emerson, 
who  found  a  home  there  at  a  later  period,  just  be- 
fore their  removal  from  Boston,  says  : 1  — 

"  Among  the  sons  I  found  William,  whom  I  had 
long  known  and  loved,  the  best  reader,  and  with  the 
sweetest  voice  I  ever  heard,  and  a  pleasant  talker  ; 
Ralph  Waldo,  whom  I  had  known  and  admired,  and 
whom  all  the  world  now  knows  almost  as  well  as 
I  do ;  Edward  Bliss,  the  most  modest  and  genial, 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  graceful,  speaker, 
a  universal  favorite  ;  and  Charles  Chauncy,  bright 
and  ready,  full  of  sense,  ambitious  of  distinction 
and  capable  of  it.  There  never  was  a  more  de- 
lightful family." 

1  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  Teacher,  Boston,  1878,  p.  59. 


BOYHOOD.  39 

The  passage  in  "Domestic  Life"  referred  to 
above  is  so  clearly  a  reminiscence  of  their  family 
circle  that  I  will  insert  it  here  :  — 

"  Who  has  not  seen,  and  who  can  see  unmoved, 
under  a  low  roof,  the  eager,  blushing  boys  discharg- 
ing as  they  can  their  household  chores,  and  hasten- 
ing into  the  sitting-room  to  the  study  of  to-morrow's 
merciless  lesson,  yet  stealing  time  to  read  one  chap- 
ter more  of  the  novel  hardly  smuggled  into  the 
tolerance  of  father  and  mother,  —  atoning  for  the 
same  by  some  passages  of  Plutarch  or  Goldsmith ; 
the  warm  sympathy  with  which  they  kindle  each  - 
other  in  school-yard,  or  barn,  or  wood-shed,  with 
scraps  of  poetry  or  song,  with  phrases  of  the  last, 
oration  or  mimicry  of  the  orator  ;  the  youthful 
criticism,  on  Sunday,  of  the  sermons ;  the  school 
declamation,  faithfully  rehearsed  at  home,  some- 
times to  the  fatigue,  sometimes  to  the  admiration,  of 
sisters  ;  the  first  solitary  joys  of  literary  vanity, 
when  the  translation  or  the  theme  has  been  com- 
pleted, sitting  alone  near  the  top  of  the  house ;  the 
cautious  comparison  of  the  attractive  advertisement 
of  the  arrival  of  Macready,  Booth,  or  Kemble,  or  of 
the  discourse  of  a  well-known  speaker,  with  the  ex- 
pense of  the  entertainment ;  the  affectionate  delight 
with  which  they  greet  the  return  of  each  one  after- 
the  early  separations  which  school  or  business  re- 
quires ;  the  foresight  with  which,  during  such  ab- 
sences, they  hive  the  honey  which  opportunity  offers, 


40  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

for  the  ear  and  imagination  of  the  others ;  and  the 
unrestrained  glee  with  which  they  disburden  them- 
selves of  their  early  mental  treasures  when  the  holi- 
days bring  them  again  together  ?  What  is  the  hoop 
that  holds  them  stanch  ?  It  is  the  iron  band  of  pov- 
erty, of  necessity,  of  austerity,  which,  excluding  them 
from  the  sensual  enjoyments  which  make  other  boys 
too  early  old,  has  directed  their  activity  into  safe 
and  right  channels,  and  made  them,  despite  them- 
selves, reverers  of  the  grand,  the  beautiful,  and  the 
__  good.  Ah,  short-sighted  students  of  books,  of  na- 
ture, and  of  man  !  too  happy  could  they  know  their 
advantages,  they  pine  for  freedom  from  that  mild 
parental  yoke ;  they  sigh  for  fine  clothes,  for  rides, 
for  the  theatre,  and  premature  freedom  and  dissi- 
pation which  others  possess.  Woe  to  them  if  their 
wishes  were  crowned  !  The  angels  that  dwell  with 
them,  and  are  weaving  laurels  of  life  for  their 
youthful  brows,  are  Toil  and  Want  and  Truth  and 
Mutual  Faith." 

And  another  passage  in  the  same  volume  (p.  280), 
of  the  boy  reading  Plato,  covered  to  his  chin  with 
a  cloak,  in  a  cold  upper  chamber,  and  associating 
the  Dialogues  ever  after  with  a  woollen  smell,  is 
evidently  another  of  their  experiences;  Edward's, 
most  likely,  at  a  somewhat  later  time. 

Ralph's  school-days  began  before  he  was  three 
years  old ;  not  an  unusual  thing  at  that  time,  when 
the  school-room  took  the  place  of  the  nursery.  His 


BOYHOOD.  41 

mother  writes,  March  9, 1806  :  "  William  and  Kalph 
now  go  again  to  Mrs.  Whitwell's  school,"  in  Sum- 
mer Street,  near  the  parsonage.  May  17th,  his 
father  writes :  "  Kalph  does  not  read  very  well  yet." 
Dr.  Furness  remembers  him  somewhat  later  under 
Miss  Nancy  Dickson,  at  the  same  school ;  whence 
they  passed  on  together  to  the  school  of  Lawson 
Lyon,  "  a  severe  teacher,  whose  ruler  and  cowskiu 
did  active  service,"  says  Mr.  Samuel  Bradford,1 
another  school-fellow  and  member  of  the  "  three  of 
us  "  who,  Emerson  writes  nearly  seventy  years  after- 
wards, "  have  agreed  not  to  grow  old,  certainly  not 
to  each  other." 

In  1813  Emerson.entered.  the  Latin  School,  which, 
he  says,  was  then  on  its  wanderings  whilst  the 
school-house  was  rebuilding,  first  to  the  Mill  Pond 
(since  filled  up,  and  now  Haymarket  Square  and 
the  adjoining  tract  between  North  and  South  Mar- 
gin streets),  where  the  beach-birds  were  piping  over 
the  flats ;  then  to  an  attic  on  Pemberton  Hill.  The- 
headmastership  soon  afterwards  devolved  upon  Mr. 
Benjamin  Apthorp  Gould,  "an  excellent  master, 
who  loved  a  good  scholar  and  waked  his  ambition. 
One  day  in  1814  Mr.  Gould  informed  the  school  that 
there  was  a  rumor  that  the  British  were  going  to 
send  a  fleet  to  Boston  Harbor,  and  it  was  desired 
that  the  boys  of  the  school  should  come  one  day  to 
assist  in  throwing  up  defences  on  Noddle's  Island, 
i  Bradford  Memoirs  (privately  printed),  Phil.,  1880,  pp.  36,  61. 


42  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

All  who  were  able  and  willing  should  go  the  next 
day  at  nine  o'clock  to  the  bottom  of  Hanover  Street, 
where  a  boat  would  be  in  waiting  to  carry  them  to 
the  island.  The  whole  school  went.  I  went,  but  I 
confess  I  cannot  remember  a  stroke  of  work  that  I 
or  my  school-fellows  accomplished.  Mr.  Gould  in 
his  first  years  encouraged  the  boys  to  found  a  school 
library,  which  was  immediately  set  on  foot.  One  of 
his  virtues  I  recall  often,  —  that  he  required  us  to 
learn  by  heart  verses  of  Homer ;  which  I  doubt  not 
some  of  us  kept  in  mind  and  could  repeat  long 
after  we  forgot  their  meaning.  Mr.  Gould  valued 
good  speaking,  and  the  Saturday  morning  was  de- 
voted to  it.  Edward  Greeley  Loring,  now  Judge 
Loring  of  Washington,  was  the  best  speaker."  1 

Judge  Loring,  in  a  kind  reply  to  my  request 
for  his  recollections  of  Emerson,  says  :  "  I  do  not 
remember  anything  salient  enough  in  Emerson's 
school  life  to  serve  your  purpose.  He  was  always 
a  good  scholar  because  honestly  studious,  but  not 
eminent.  His  compositions  were  graceful  and  cor- 
rect ;  this  made  their  quality,  and  I  think  describes 
his  exercises  at  college  as  well  as  at  school.  He 
began  at  school  to  be  critical  in  expression,  and 
grew  more  and  more  so  through  his  college  life. 
In  school  and  college  he  was  liked  for  his  equable 
temper  and  fairness,  but  was  not  demonstrative 

i  MSS.  notes  for  the  speech  at  the  Latin  School  celebration,  No. 
vember  8,  1876. 


BOYHOOD.  43 

enough  to  be  eminently  popular.  ...  He  was  not 
vigorous  in  body,  and  therefore  not  a  champion  in 
athletic  sports ;  but  I  do  not  remember  that  he 
shunned  play  or  boyish  fun.  .  .  .  My  clearest  rec- 
ollection is  that  Emerson  was  singularly  free  from 
faults,  and  this  was  the  substratum  for  his  subse- 
quent expansion  in  character  and  intellect." 

^Dr.  Furness  says :  "  We  were  at  the  Boston 
Latin  School  together.  From  eleven  to  twelve 
every  day  we  went  to  a  private  school  kept  by 
Mr.  Webb,  master  of  one  of  the  public  grammar 
schools.  After  the  public  school  was  dismissed, 
Mr.  Webb  had  a  few  boys  who  came  to  him,  chiefly 
to  learn  to  write.1  Ealph  and  I  used  to  sit  to- 
gether. I  can  see  him  now,  at  his-  copy-book  ;  quite 
a  laborious  operation  it  appeared,  as  his  tongue 
worked  up  and  down  with  his  pen.  But  then, 
thank  Heaven !  he  never  had  any  talent  for  any- 
thing, —  nothing  but  pure  genius,  which  talents 
would  have  overlaid.  Then  it  was  that  he  wrote 
verses  on  the  naval  victories  of  the  war  of  1812. 
He  wrote  in  verse  also  a  history  or  romance,  —  or 
was  it  an  epic  ?  —  entitled  '  Fortus,'  which  I  have  a 
dim  remembrance  of  having  illustrated.2  I  think 
Waldo  repaid  my  admiration  of  his  verses  with  his 

1  Emerson  remembered  playing  truant  for  some  time  in  this 
midday  interval,  and  being  punished  for  it  by  imprisonment  on 
bread  and  water. 

2  Fortus,  with  Dr.  Furness's  illustrations,  still  survives,  in  the 
possession  of  the  Rev.  Daniel  Noyes  at  Byfield. 


44  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

for  my  pictures.  He  was  rather  jealous  of  any 
amendments  that  I  Ventured  to  suggest.  At  the 
Latin  School  his  favorite  piece  for  declamation  was 
from  the  'Pleasures  of  Hope,'  'Warsaw's  Last 
Champion,'  etc.  This  passage  is  a  telephone  to  my 
ears.  I  hear  the  ringing  of  his  voice." 

In  his  last  school  year  Ralph  more  than  once  de- 
livered "  original  poems  "  on  exhibition  days,  and 
some  of  his  "  themes  "  so  pleased  Mr.  Gould  that 
he  kept  them  to  show  to  the  school  committee.1 
"  Those  days,"  says  Dr.  Furness,  "  may  be  dis- 
tinguished as  the  era  of  rhetoric ;  we  boys  went 
into  ecstasies  over  a  happy  turn  of  expression  or  a 
brilliant  figure  of  speech.  The  Everetts,  John  and 
•  Edward,  were  the  demigods.  I  remember  Waldo's 
telling  me  of  the  makiug-up  after  a  quarrel  between 
William  and  his  classmate  John  Everett,  and  quot- 
ing with  great  admiration  a  passage  in  Everett's 
note  about  '  trifles  which  children  resent  and  boys 
magnify ; '  and  one  from  a  sermon  by  Mr.  N.  L. 
Frothingham,  the  young  pastor  of  First  Church, 
of  the  doctrine  that  represents  man  as  '  coining 
into  the  world  girt  in  the  poison  robes  of  hereditary 
depravity,  and  with  the  curses  of  his  Maker  upon 
his  head.'  These  were  the  things  than  which  we 

1  One  of  these  (on  Astronomy)  I  find  among  Emerson's  papers. 
One  night,  crossing  Boston  Common,  then  an  open  expanse,  he  had 
been  much  impressed  hy  the  sight  of  the  stars,  and  resolved  to 
take  this  subject  for  his  next  school  composition. 


BOYHOOD.  45 

thought  nothing  could  be  finer.  I  suppose  it  was 
the  impressiveness  of  Waldo's  tones  that  has  caused 
me  to  remember  them." 

There  are  several  specimens  of  his  verse-making 
aboiit  this  time  ;  perhaps  the  most  favorable  is  the 
translation  from  Virgil  given  by  Mr.  Cooke.1  In 
general  they  show  some  facility  at  rhyming,  with- 
out much  appearance  of  any  other  aim.  His  gift  — 
of  rhyming  was  a  matter  of  modest  family  pride 
among  the  brothers,  and  he  was  often  called  upon 
to  exercise  it  in  writing  to  them  when  they  were 
separated.  In  his  letters  to  Edward,  who  was  away 
from  home  at  the  Phillips  Academy  at  Andover, 
he  often  passes  into  verse,  as  for  instance  :  — 

"  The  other  day,  while  scouring  knives,  I  began 
to  hum  away  that  verse,  — 

Harp  of  Memnon,  sweetly  strung1,  etc., 

but  I  really  did  not  think  that  the  harsh  melody  of 
the  knives  sounded  quite  so  sweet  as  the  harp. 

Melodious  knife,  and  thou,  harmonious  sand, 
Touched  by  the  poet  scourer's  rugged  hand, 
When  swift  ye  glide  along  the  scouring-board, 
With  music's  note  your  happy  bard  reward." 

In  1814,  the  coastwise  trade  being  cut  off  by  the 
enemy's  cruisers,  the  price  of  provisions  went  so 
high  in  Boston  —  flour  $17  a  barrel,  and  rice  and 
meal  in  proportion  —  that  the  family  were  driven 
out  to  Concord,  where  they  passed  the  year  with  — 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  By  George  Willis  Cooke.  Boston, 
1881 :  p.  18. 


46  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Dr.  Ripley.     At  the   peace  Ralph  writes  to  his 

brother  William,  who  was  then  in  college  :  — 

CONCORD,  February  24,  1815. 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  —  What  a  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  times  since  I  saw  you  last,  and 
how  happy  is  the  change !  But  a  little  while  since 
and  the  cry  of  war  was  heard  in  every  place,  but 
now 

Fair  Peace  triumphant  blooms  on  golden  wings, 
And  War  no  more  of  all  his  Victories  sings. 

When  the  news  reached  this  place  a  smile  was  on 
every  face  and  joy  in  every  heart.  On  the  22d 
instant  the  steeple  of  the  court-house  here  was  il- 
luminated, and  appeared  very  brilliant  from  this 
house.  When  I  came  to  see  you,  you  did  not  pack 
up  your  Cicero's  Orations  in  the  bundle,  and  I 
should  like  to  have  you  send  it  the  first  opportunity 
in  your  bundle  of  clothes.  To-day  I  get  through 
the  Incredibilibus  Collectanea. 

And  now,  dear  William,  with  a  rhyme  I  '11  close, 
For  you  are  tired,  I  may  well  suppose. 
Besides,  we  soon  shall  hear  the  nightly  bell 
For  prayers,  —  so  now  farewell. 

Yours  affectionately,  RALPH. 

His  rhyming  powers  appear  to  have  been  discov- 
ered at  the  school  in  Concord,  and  when  he  left 
he  was  made  to  mount  a  barrel,  and  recite  by  way 
of  farewell  an  original  ode,  of  which  he  used  to 
repeat  for  the  delectation  of  his  children  whatever 
scraps  he  could  remember,  beginning :  — 


BOYHOOD.  47 

I  rise  to  bid  adieu 
To  you,  my  schoolmates,  and,  kind  sir,  to  you. 

He  always  recurred  with  much  amusement  to  his 
brother  Charles's  disgust  at  being  held  up  to 
school  as,  — 

Another  brother,  small  and  younger  too, 
New  to  the  school  and  to  its  studies  new, 
Hath  here  received  instruction  of  that  kind 
To  banish  all  its  dulness  from  the  mind. 

The  last  two  lines  he  thought  particularly  delight- 
ful. 

On  their  return  to  Boston,  having  to  seek  a  new 
dwelling-place,  a  house  on  Beacon  Street,  near  the 
present  site  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  was  lent  to 
Mrs.  Emerson  by  the  owner,  who  was  going  to 
Europe,  she  undertaking  to  provide  board  for  his 
wife  and  family.  In  the  yard  there  was  room 
enough  for  a  cow,  which  Dr.  Ripley  sent  down 
from  Concord,  and  which  Emerson  remembered 
driving  round  the  Common  to  a  pasture  his  mother 
had  on  Carver  Street.  In  one  of  his  letters  (always 
by  private  hand)  to  Edward,  who  had  just  returned 
to  his  boarding-school,  and  "  are  likely  to  be  dull, 
mother  says,  during  the  first  weeks  of  your  stay," 
he  writes  "  as  I  suppose  you  expect  me  to,  poe- 
tice"  —  describing  the  prospect  from  the  basement, 
across  the  yard, 

By  boards  and  dirt  and  rubbish  marr'd. 
Upon  the  right  a  wicket  gate, 
The  left  appears  a  Jail  of  State. 


48  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Before,  the  -view  all  boundless  spreads, 
And  five  tall  chimneys  lift  their  lofty  heads. 

The   gate,  I   suppose,   of   the    Granary  Burying- 
Ground,  and  the  County  Jail  on  Court  Street. 

"  Aunt's  only  message  to  you  is,  Be  brave  ;  that 
is,  do  not  be  cast  down  by  thoughts  of  home.  I 
have  begun  Telemachus  in  French  at  Miss  Sales', 
and  at  home  I  am  reading  Priestley's  'Lectures 
on  History.'  Mother  thinks  you  had  better  try  to 
borrow  'Charles  XII.'  or  some  other  history,  to 
amuse  you  during  vacation.  But  as  even  nonsense 
sounds  good  if  cloth'd  in  the  dress  of  Poetry^  I  be- 
lieve I  must  resort  to  that  as  my  last  expedient :  — 

So  erst  two  brethren  climb' d  the  cloud  capp'd  hill, 
Ill-fated  Jack  and  long-lamented  Jill, 
Snatched  from  the  crystal  font  its  lucid  store, 
And  in  full  pails  the  precious  treasure  bore. 
But  ah!  by  dull  forgetfulness  oppress' d 
(Forgive  me,  Edward),  I  've  forget  the  rest. 

Yours,  RALPH." 

October  1,  1817,  he  writes :  "Next  Friday,  you 
know,  my  college  life  begins,  Deo  volente,  and  I 
hope  and  trust  will  begin  with  determined  and 
ardent  pursuit  of  real  knowledge  that  will  raise  me 
high  in  the  class  while  in  college,  and  qualify  me 
well  for  stations  of  future  usefulness.  Aunt  Bet- 
sey is  very  much  grieved,  she  says,  that  I  go  to 
Cambridge  instead  of  Providence,  —  you  guess  the 
reason.  I  hope  going  to  Cambridge  will  not  pre- 


BOYHOOD.  49 

vent  some  future  time  my  being  as  good  a  minister 
as  if  I  came  all  Andovered  from  Providence,"  — 
namely,  from  Brown  University,  which  aunt  Bet- 
sey doubtless  thought  safer  from  the  latitudinarian- 
ism  that  had  crept  into  Cambridge. 


CHAPTER  U. 

COLLEGE-LIFE.  —  SCHOOL-KEEPING.  —  PEOSPECTS. 
1817-1824. 

IN^  August^  1817,  Emerson  entered  Harvard  Col- 
lege. It  had  been  decided  that  he  should  wait  a 
while,  —  the  family  resources  being  then  at  their 
lowest  ebb,  —  but,  receiving  through  Mr.  Gould 
the  promise  that  he  should  be  appointed  "  Presi- 
dent's freshman,"  and  perhaps  be  granted  "  other 
privileges,"  he  presented  himself,  and  passed,  says 
his  mother,  "  a  very  good  examination,  and  was  ad- 
mitted without  being  admonished  to  study,  as  was 
the  case  with  many." 

The  "  President's  freshman "  was  the  messen- 
ger to  summon  delinquents  and  to  announce  to  the 
students  the  orders  of  the  Faculty.  He  had  his 
lodging,  free  of  charge,  in  the  President's  house,  — 
the  building  now  called  Wadsworth  House.  Em- 
erson's room  (now  the  Bursar's  office)  was  directly 
under  the  President's  study.  The  other  privileges 
appear,  from  a  search  of  the  archives  obligingly 
ordered  by  President  Eliot,  to  have  been  Emer- 
son's appointment  to  the  place  of  waiter  at  Com- 
mons, which  relieved  him  of  three  fourths  of  the 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  51 

cost  of  his  board.  Nothing  further  is  mentioned 
in  the  official  records,  but  the  following  letters  to 
his  brother  William,  who  was  keeping  school  at 
Kennebunk,  Me.,  show  that  he  received  something 
from  one  of  the  scholarship  funds :  — 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  14,  1819. 

DEAR  WILLIAM  :  .  .  .  You  speak  of  mother's 
pecuniary  exigencies  at  present ;  though  pressing 
they  are  not  distressful  quite  yet,  though  she  is 
relying  considerably  on  your  assistance.  ...  I 
brought  twenty  dollars  from  Waltham  day  before 
yesterday,  besides  your  $3.50.  The  quarterly  ten- 
dollar  present  from  the  "unknown  friend"  has 
been  discontinued  two  quarters,  which  confirms 
mother's  suspicion  of  Sheriff  Bradford's  being  the 
source.  The  deacons,  at  the  beginning  of  January, 
sent  their  compliments  with  a  twenty-dollar  bill  for 
mother.  .  .  .  As  to  Cambridge  news,  the  Presi- 
dent's absence  and  attentions  are  principal.  .  .  . 
Should  you  not  like  to  have  been  witness  of  the 
meeting  of  the  two  Presidents  at  Washington? 
People  appear  to  think  that  our  President  will  do 
himself  as  much  honor  as  a  man  of  the  world  as  he 
will  as  a  literary  character,  and  that  Mr.  Monroe 
in  appearance  is  little  more  than  a  comfortable 
ploughman.  .  .  . 

February  15.  This  morning  I  received  the  very 
important  intelligence  that  I  was  appointed  waiter 


52  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

(for  the  first  time,  you  know).  I  am  to  wait  in 
the  Junior  Hall.  I  do  like  it,  and  yet  I  do  not 
like  it ;  for  which  sentiments  you  can  easily  guess 
the  reason.  .  .  .  To-day  we  begin  the  studies  of 
the  term ;  languages  in  the  morning,  Blair  at 
noon,  and  algebra  in  the  afternoon.  ...  I  shall 
try  to  write  on.  Johnson.  .  .  . 

April  1.  ...  Your  letter  made  several  faces 
shine,  and  when  I  came  humbly  plodding  home 
Saturday,  and  carried  a  sum  to  the  bank  to  be 
changed,  I  believe  I  held  up  my  head  six  inches 
higher  than  before.  Mother  and  aunt  were  afraid 
you  had  not  left  yourself  enough  to  subsist  upon. 
Have  you  ?  I  told  you  I  was  waiter  last  quarter, 
and  now  I  am  this.  You  wonder  why  I  was  not 
appointed  in  the  first  quarter :  it  was  because  I  did 
not  petition,  which  was  owing  to  ignorance  when 
to  go.  I  went  a  little  while  since  to  get  my  name 
out  [leave  of  absence  from  Cambridge],  and  the 
President  was  very  gracious,  —  told  me  I  had 
grown,  and  said  he  hoped  intellectually  as  well  as 
physically,  and  told  me  (better  than  all),  when  my 
next  bill  comes  out,  to  bring  it  to  him,  as  I  had 
never  received  the  Saltonstall  benefit  promised  me 
before  I  entered  college.  .  .  .  My  criticism  (a 
theme)  on  "  Guillaume  le  Conque*rant "  had  two 
marks  on  the  back,  which  distinction  only  six  of 
the  class  obtained.  Mathematics  I  hate.  ...  As 
to  Bowdoin  [prize  dissertation],  I  am  very  doubt- 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  53 

ful  about  writing  this  year,  for  though  reading 
Boswell  I  have  not  read  half  of  Johnson's  works. 
Do  you  not  think  I  should  do  better  to  be  a  year 
writing  the  character  of  Socrates  ?  .  .  . 

April  23.  ...  I  went  to  the  President  to-day 
with  my  bills,  and  he  gave  me  an  order  to  the 
steward  for  credit  for  sixty-four  dollars  on  Salton- 
stall  legacy,  and  told  me  I  should  have  more  in 
June.  The  government  have  just  made  a  new  law 
that  no  student  shall  go  to  the  theatre,  on  penalty 
of  ten  dollars  fine  at  first  offence,  and  other  punish- 
ment afterwards.  I  am  reading  second  volume  of 
Boswell,  third  volume  of  Spenser's  Faery  Queen, 
with  which  I  am  delighted  (a  girl's  word).  .  .  . 

He  was  also  beneficiary  under  the  Elder  Penn 
bequest  to  the  First  Church  "  for  payment  of  <£10 
yearly  to  such  poor  scholar  or  scholars  as  the  elders 
and  deacons  shall  see  fit." 

During  the  last  term  of  the  freshman  year  he 
was  private  tutor  to  President  Kirkland's  nephew 
(the  late  Reverend  Dr.),  Samuel  Kirkland  Lothrop, 
a  lad  two  years  younger  than  himself,  who  was 
getting  ready  to  enter  college.  Dr.  Lothrop  told 
me  that  Emerson,  though  not  a  very  urgent  in- 
structor, —  only  insisting  on  neat  renderings  of  the 
classics,  —  was  of  great  service  to  him  in  leading 
him  to  think  more  seriously  and  rightly  about  col- 
lege life,  and  indeed  about  life  in  general.  When 


54  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

the  lessons  were  done,  he  would  converse  at  length 
—  sometimes  gravely,  often  with  a  dry  humor, 
never  bitterly  —  upon  the  Latin  School,  Boston 
society,  what  was  worth  while  in  college  and  what 
was  not ;  also  about  books,  out-of-the-way  books, 
especially  poetry.  In  manner  and  disposition  he 
appeared  then,  in  his  fourteenth  year,  just  what  he 
was  afterwards ;  kindly,  affable,  but  self-contained ; 
receiving  praise  or  sympathy  without  taking  much 
notice  of  it.  His  verses,  for  example,  which  he 
was  willing  to  show,  were  his:  whether  good  or 
bad,  it  mattered  little.  He  seemed,  said  Dr.  Lo- 
throp,  to  dwell  apart,  as  if  in  a  tower,  from  which 
he  looked  upon  everything  from  a  loophole  of  his 
own.1 

At  the  beginning  of  the  next  college  year,  Presi- 
dent Kirkland  told  young  Lothrop  that  the  ar- 
rangement interfered  too  much  with  Emerson's 
studies,  and  sent  him  to  another  tutor. 

The  college  studies  did  not,  then  or  afterwards, 
receive  from  Emerson  the  undivided  attention 
which  the  authorities  wished  and  expected,  and 
complaints  came  to  Mr.  Gould;  who,  Emerson 
says,  "  did  not  forget  his  scholars  when  they  went 
to  Cambridge.  He  came  to  see  me  in  my  room, 

1  "  I  abide  in  my  old  barrel,  or,  if  yon  will,  coop,  or  tub  of  ob- 
servation, and  mean  to  keep  my  eyes  open,  whether  anything 
offers  to  be  observed  or  not"  —  Letter  to  M.  M.  E.,  January  27, 

1858. 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  55 

once  or  twice,  to  give  me  advice  of  my  sins  or  de- 
ficiencies in  mathematics,  in  which  I  was  then,  as  I 
am  now,  a  hopeless  dunce."  l 

Harvard  College  was  then  and  long  afterwards, 
as  far  as  the  instruction  went,  very  much  a  boys' 
school,  such  as  boys'  schools  then  were.  The  stu- 
dents were  boys,  and  the  business  of  the  place  was 
to  give  and  receive  a  certain  dose  of  learning,  with- 
out much  thought  on  either  side  of  there  being 
anything  of  intrinsic  interest  in  it.  The  college 
exercises  were  very  fitly  called  "  recitations,"  and 
were  for  the  most  part  confined  to  making  sure 
that  the  lessons  were  duly  repeated.  Some  excep- 
tions there  were :  George  Ticknor,  the  Professor 
of  Modern  Languages,  and  Edward  Everett,  the 
Greek  Professor,  had  brought  with  them  from 
Europe  something  of  the  methods  of  university 
instruction,  which  they  (especially  Mr.  Ticknor) 
strove  to  introduce  into  the  college  system.  Emer- 
son diligently  attended  their  lectures,  of  which  he 
wrote  out  long  notes,  and  he  read  to  some  extent 
in  the  directions  they  suggested.  He  also  speaks 
with  interest  of  Levi  Frisbie,  the  Professor  of 
Moral  Philosophy;  and  the  exercises  in  English 
composition  under  Edward  Tyrrel  Channing  were 
labored  over  with  affection.  His  earliest  note- 
books (from  his  junior  year,  the  year  of  Mr. 

1  Remarks  at  the  meeting  of  the  Latin  School  Association  in 
1876.  Reported  m  Boston  Evening  Transcript,  November  9th. 


66  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Channing's  appointment)  are  filled  with  rough 
drafts  of  college  "themes,"  and  he  took  two  Bow- 
doin  prizes  for  dissertations ;  one  on  the  character 
of  Socrates,  and  one  on  the  Present  State  of  Eth- 
ical Philosophy.  He  also  received  a  Boylston  prize 
for  declamation,  thirty  dollars,  which  he  carried 
home,  hoping  that  it  would  buy  a  shawl  or  some 
other  needed  comfort  for  his  mother,  but  was 
chagrined  to  learn  that  it  had  gone  to  pay  the 
baker's  bill.  The  rest  of  the  course  (except  mathe- 
matics) he  passed  through  without  discredit  though 
without  distinction,  and  came  out  somewhat  above 
the  middle  of  his  class  in  college  rank. 

No  doubt  the  President  and  Mr.  Gould,  seeing 
his  literary  turn  and  his  apparent  docility,  ex- 
pected from  him  an  assiduous  application  to  learn- 
ing ;  he  seems  to  have  expected  this  himself.  But  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  under  any  system  he  would 
have  been  a  student  of  books.  It  was  not  in  his 
nature  ;  he  could  never,  he  said  in  after-years,  deal 
with  other  people's  facts ;  and  he  never  made  the 
attempt.  His  aunt  Mary  Emerson,  who  was  anx- 
iously following  his  course,  said  to  him  in  one  of 
her  letters:  "When  the  President  saw  your  Soc- 
rates, he  asked,  Why  not  a  better  Locke,  Stewart, 
and  Paley  scholar  ?  "  The  truth  was,  the  school- 
boy docility  had  already  given  way  to  a  remark- 
able maturity,  which  however  showed  itself  as 
yet  only  in  a  feeling  of  self-reliance  and  contented. 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  57 

ness  to  wait  until  his  proper  course  should  be  made 
clear  to  him. 

Upon  the  whole,  he  felt  at  the  end  of  his  col- 
lege course  that  the  college  had  done  little  for 
him.  He  found  there  but  little  nutriment  suited 
to  his  appetite,  and  strayed  off,  though  with  some 
misgivings,  to  other  pastures.  In  one  of  his  jour- 
nals long  afterwards,  he  speaks  of  "  the  instinct 
which  leads  the  youth  who  has  no  faculty  for 
mathematics,  and  weeps  over  the  impossible  Ana- 
lytical Geometry,  to  console  his  defeats  with  Chau- 
cer and  Montaigne,  with  Plutarch  and  Plato  at 
night."  "  The  boy  at  college  apologizes  for  not 
learning  the  tutor's  tasks,  and  tries  to  learn  them ; 
but  stronger  nature  gives  him  Otway  and  Massin- 
ger  to  read,  or  betrays  him  into  a  stroll  to  Mount 
Auburn,  in  study  hours.  The  poor  boy,  instead  of 
thanking  the  gods  and  slighting  the  mathematical 
tutor,  ducks  before  the  functionary,  and  poisons  his 
fine  pleasures  by  a  perpetual  penance." 

In  his  own  way  he  was  industrious;  feeling 
vaguely  that,  for  him,  power  of  expression  was 
more  important  than  philological  or  scientific  train- 
ing. Besides  rough  drafts  of  college  dissertations, 
I  find  in  his  note-books  "  phrases  for  use  poetical : ' 
many  quotations,  principally  with  a  view  to  the 
form  of  expression  ;  paraphrases  of  striking  pas- 
sages he  had  met  with  in  his  reading ;  also  copies 
of  letters  from  his  aunt  Mary,  whose  style  he 


58  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

greatly  admired.  At  the  end  of  cue  of  these  books 
he  writes :  "  I  think  it  has  been  an  improving  em- 
ployment, decidedly.  It  has  not  encroached  upon 
other  occupations,  and  has  afforded  seasonable  aid 
at  various  times  to  enlarge  or  enliven  scanty  themes, 
etc.  Nor  has  it  monopolized  the  energies  of  com- 
position for  literary  exercises.  Whilst  I  have  writ- 
ten in  it  I  have  begun  and  completed  my  Pytho- 
logian  poem  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  lines,  and 
my  dissertation  on  the  character  of  Socrates.  It 
has  prevented  the  ennui  of  many  an  idle  moment, 
and  has  perhaps  enriched  my  stock  of  language  for 
future  exertions.  Much  of  it  has  been  written 
with  a  view  to  their  preservation  as  hints  for  a 
peculiar  pursuit  at  the  distance  of  years." 

The  peculiar  pursuit,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was 
preaching.  But,  besides  moral  reflections,  his 
note-books  contain  the  evidence  of  wide  reading  of 
a  desultory  kind,  in  which  history,  memoirs,  and 
the  English  Reviews  are  prominent ;  and  there  is 
much  criticism  of  the  poetry  of  the  day ;  laudatory 
of  Byron  and  Moore,  doubtful  of  "the  experi- 
ments of  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  Mr.  Coleridge ; " 
queries  whether  they  have  not  gained  more  ridicule 
than  honor,  not  because  they  want  genius,  but  be- 
cause they  want  nature,  and  the  affectation  of 
simplicity  is  too  apparent;  praise  of  Barrow  and  of 
Ben  Jonson  for  "  their  quaint,  vigorous  phrases." 

Several  of  Emerson's  classmates  have  given  their 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  59 

reminiscences  of  him  at  this  time.  In  the  Boston 
Literary  World  of  May  22,  1880,  Mr.  W.  B. 
Hill  gives  some  interesting  particulars,  furnished 
him,  he^tells  me,  by  his  uncle,  Mr.  John  Boynton 
Hill,  Emerson's  classmate :  — 

"  In  1817,  when  good  Dr.  Kirkland  was  Presi- 
dent, the  '  President's  freshman '  was  a  slender, 
delicate  youth,  younger  than  most  of  his  classmates, 
and  of  a  sensitive,  retiring  nature.  Although  he 
had  a  brother  [William]  in  the  senior  class,  to  in- 
troduce him  to  the  ways  of  college  life,  .he  became 
acquainted  with  his  companions  slowly.  The  noisy 
ways  of  those  jolly  fellows  who  first  hail  new-com- 
ers were  distasteful  to  him  ;  and  the  proximity  of 
his  room  to  the  President's  study  was  equally  dis- 
tasteful to  them.  By  degrees,  however,  the  more 
studious  members  of  his  class  began  to  seek  him 
out.  They  found  him  to  be  unusually  thoughtful 
and  well-read  ;  knowing  perhaps  less  than  they 
about  text-books,  but  far  more  about  literature. 
1  He  had  studied  the  early  English  dramatists  and 
poets,  pored  over  Montaigne,  and  knew  Shakespeare 
almost  by  heart.  In  his  sophomore  year  he  be- 
came the  leading  spirit  in  a  little  book-club,  of 
which  Edward  Kent,  afterwards  governor  of  Maine, 
Charles  W.  Upham,  of  Salem,  and  Dr.  D.  W.  Gor- 
ham,  of  Exeter,  N.  H.,  were  also  members.  The 
club  purchased  the  English  Reviews,  the  North 
American  —  then  just  struggling  into  life,  —  and, 


60  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

in  general,  the  literature  of  the  day  which  they 
could  not  find  in  the  college  library.  The  member 
with  the  longest  purse  bought  the  book,  and  then, 
especially  if  it  were  one  of  Scott's  novels,  it  was 
read  aloud  at  a  meeting  of  the  club.  In  poetry, 
too,  Emerson  showed  some  skill,  and  was  always 
ready  to  turn  off  squibs  on  college  matters,  or  songs 
for  festive  occasions.  He  was  chosen  the  poet  for 
Class  Day,  and  his  poem  was  pronounced  superior 
to  the  general  expectation.  His  class  numbered 
fifty-nine,  and  he  stood  high  enough  in  it  to  have 
one  of  the  twenty-nine  Commencement  parts.  He 
was  assigned  '  John  Knox '  in  a  Conference  on  the 
Characters  of  John  Knox,  William  Penn,  and 
John  Wesley.  He  was  not  elected  into  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  (a  post-graduate  society,  composed  of 
the  best  scholars  in  each  class)  until  some  years 
after  graduation.  At  the  close  of  his  freshman  year 
Emerson  was  obliged,  of  course,  to  leave  his  room 
beneath  the  President's  study,  and  accordingly  re- 
moved to  No.  5  Hollis  Hall.  In  his  junior  year 
No.  15  Hollis  was  given  to  Emerson,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  college  rule  that  the  upper  classes 
should  have  the  best  rooms.  Here  he  roomed  with 
John  G.  K.  Gourdin,  of  South  Carolina,  a  class- 
mate of  gentlemanly  manners,  quiet  nature,  and 
average  scholarship.  In  his  senior  year  he  was  in 
No.  9  Hollis,  with  his  younger  brother,  Edward, 
who  was  then  a  member  of  the  freshman  class. 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  61 

In  his  sophomore  year  his  class  had  a  fight  with 
the  freshmen  at  supper  in  Commons  Hall,  a  fight 
described  in  the  mock-heroic  poem  '  The  Rebel- 
Had.'  Some  of  the  sophomores  were  expelled  for 
their  share  in  the  disturbance,  and  thereupon  the 
whole  class  indignantly  withdrew  from  college. 
Emerson  remained  at  home  until  his  class  came 
to  terms  with  the  authorities.  This  trouble  had 
the  result  of  binding  the  class  closely  together,  and 
creating  a  warm  sympathy  which  after-years  could 
not  chill.  On  their  return  from  banishment,  Alden, 
the  wag  of  the  class,  established  the  Conventicle 
Club,  —  a  convivial  club,  of  which  Kingsbury  was 
archbishop,  Alden  bishop,  and  John  B.  Hill  par- 
son. The  club  had  no  formal  organization,  but 
held  its  meetings  at  the  pleasure  of  these  self- 
appointed  officers,  and  disbanded  at  the  end  of 
the  senior  year ;  it  was  composed  of  a  set  of  in- 
timate friends,  and  Emerson  was  one  of  the  num- 
ber. Although  his  quiet  nature  kept  him  out 
of  most  of  the  convivial  societies,  he  was  always 
genial,  fond  of  hearing  or  telling  a  good  story,  and 
ready  to  do  his  share  towards  an  evening's  enter- 
tainment. 

"Emerson  was  well  liked  both  by  classmates  and 
teachers.  Among  his  teachers  was  Edward  Ever- 
ett, who  had  just  returned  from  Europe  to  fill  the 
chair  in  Greek.  For  him  Emerson  had  a  most 
enthusiastic  admiration,  so  great  as  to  subject  him 


62  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

to  the  ridicule  of  his  more  prosy  classmates.1  His 
mind  was  unusually  mature  and  independent.  His 
letters  and  conversation  already  displayed  some- 
thing of  originality.  The  occupation  to  which  he 
looked  immediately  forward  was  teaching.  His 
older  brother  [William]  had  a  school  in  Boston, 
and,  after  graduation,  Emerson  began  to  teach  with 
him  ;  and,  I  may  add,  found  the  work  by  no  means 
to  his  taste.  The  class  of  1821  held  for  fifty  years 
its  annual  reunion  at  Cambridge.  As  Emerson 
lived  near,  he  was  one  of  the  most  faithful  atten- 
dants of  these  pleasant  gatherings,  and  to  him  fell  a 
large  share  of  the  task  of  looking  after  the  unfor- 
tunate members,  and  soliciting  aid  for  them  from 
the  more  prosperous." 

Mr.  Hill,  in  kindly  sending  me  copies  of  some 
early  letters  of  Emerson,  says :  — 

"  Calling  at  his  room  upon  some  errand  to  the 
President,  an  acquaintance  and  friendship  began 
which  lasted  through  life.  Here  I  first  saw  a  copy 
of  Shakespeare's  works  in  full,  and,  under  Emer- 
son's tutelage,  made  acquaintance  with  Montaigne, 
Swift,  Addisou,  Sterne,  and  exultantly  fed  in  these 
pastures  new  ;  leaving  behind  Mosheim's  Church 
History  and  Erskine's  Sermons.  His  duties  as  Pres- 

1  This  admiration  had  begun  earlier,  -when  Everett  was  preach- 
ing in  Boston,  and  Emerson  (as  he  told  me)  and  his  brother  Ed- 
ward used  to  go  on  Sunday  and  peep  into  the  church  where  their 
favorite  was  expected  to  preach,  to  make  sure  that  he  was  in  the 
pulpit. 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  63 

ident's  freshman  brought  him  considerable  knowl- 
edge of  almost  every  member  of  the  college.  When 
the  exhibitions  were  pending,  it  was  a  matter  of 
great  interest  to  learn  who  were  to  have  a  share  in 
the  performances,  and  what  the  share  was  to  be. 
The  announcement  was  made  in  the  morning,  after 
prayers.  The  whole  body  of  the  undergraduates 
assembled  on  the  porch  in  front  of  University  Hall, 
and  Emerson  would  be  seen  advancing  up  the  walk 
from  the  President's  study,  bearing  the  cards  on 
which  were  inscribed  the  names  and  the  parts  to 
be  performed.  It  was  an  anxious  moment;  but 
Emerson,  staid  and  impartial,  bore  to  each  the  fate- 
ful message  with  a  tranquil  smile.  He  was  mirth- 
ful, and,  though  never  demonstrative  or  boisterous, 
keenly  enjoyed  scenes  of  merriment,  and  his  placid 
smile  was  as  highly  prized  as  would  have  been  a 
loud  explosion  in  some  others.  I  call  to  mind  one 
occasion  on  which  he  took  an  active  part.  It  was 
on  a  Fourth  of  July  (1820)  :  most  of  the  class  had 
gone  home ;  a  few  of  us  were  left,  and  Emerson 
stayed  with  us,  —  not  caring,  perhaps,  to  encounter 
the  crowd  and  bustle  of  a  public  celebration.  We 
were  allowed  the  use  of  Commons  Hall,  and  had 
with  us  for  a  part  of  the  time  the  excellent  Dr.  Pop- 
kins,  Professor  of  Greek,  who  gave  us  as  a  toast, 
pjSei/  a-yav  [nothing  too  much],  and  withdrew, 
beaming.  For  this  occasion  Emerson  wrote  an 
appropriate  song,  to  the  tune  of  '  Scots  wha  hae,' 


64  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

with  which  we  made  the  walls  of  Commons  Hall 
ring." 

Another  classmate,  Mr.  John  Lowell  Gardner, 
in  a  letter  which  Dr.  Holmes  has  printed  in  his 
study  of  Emerson,  gives  some  characteristic  traits : 
"  He  had  then  the  same  manner  and  courtly  hesita- 
tion in  addressing  you  that  you  have  known  in  him 
since.  Emerson  was  not  talkative  ;  he  never  spoke 
for  effect;  his  utterances  were  well  weighed  and 
very  deliberately  made;  but  there  was  a  certain 
flash  when  he  uttered  anything  that  was  more 
than  usually  worthy  to  be  remembered."  l 

Mr.  Josiah  Quincy,  also  a  classmate  of  Emerson, 
gives  some  account  of  him  in  college.  Emerson 
seems  to  him  "  to  have  given  no  sign  of  the  power 
that  was  fashioning  itself  for  leadership  in  a  new 
time.  He  was  quiet,  unobtrusive,  and  only  a  fair 
scholar,  according  to  the  standard  of  the  college 
authorities."  2 

Mr.  Samuel  Bradford,  Emerson's  friend  from 
childhood,  was  present  at  the  Commencement  exer- 
cises when  the  class  graduated  in  1821.  Emerson, 
he  tells  me,  expected  permission  to  recite  an  original 
poem  on  that  occasion,  but  having  instead  the  part 
in  the  colloquy,  was  so  disgusted  that  he  would  take 
no  pains  to  commit  it  to  memory,  and  had  to  be 
greatly  prompted  before  he  had  finished. 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.   Boston, 
1885  :  p.  39.     (In  the  series  of  American  Men  of  Letters. ) 
3  Figures  of  the  Past.    By  Josiah  Qnincy.    Boston,  1883 :  p.  77. 


COLLEGE-LIFE.  65 

The  original  poem  may  be  one  of  which  I  find 
some  fragments  in  his  note-book.  He  writes  at  the 
end:  — 

"  This  theme  is  dispensed  with.  All  our  old  ex- 
ercises are  ceasing  in  succession  to  warn  us  of  the 
approaching  termination  of  the  academic  course. 
For  myself,  I  wish  it  might  not  move  so  rapidly. 
I  am  in  no  haste  to  engage  in  the  difficulties  and 
tasks  of  the  world,  for  whose  danger  and  turmoil 
the  independence  is  a  small  reward." 

There  was  much  in  the  retrospect  that  was  un- 
satisfactory ;  still  there  had  been  leisure  and  oppor- 
tunity for  congenial  employment.  Besides  the  clubs 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Hill,  Emerson  was  member  and 
secretary  of  a  literary  society,  whose  records  I  find 
among  his  papers.  They  begin  with  a  preamble 
stating  that,  as  "  the  great  design  of  public  educa- 
tion is  to  qualify  men  for  usefulness  in  active  life, 
and  the  principal  arts  by  which  we  can  be  useful 
are  those  of  writing  and  speaking,  we  agree  to 
form  ourselves  into  a  society  for  writing  and  extem- 
poraneous speaking,  to  be  called ."  The  name 

it  was  decided  to  leave  blank,  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  the  "  Pythologian  Club,"  for  which  Emerson 
wrote  a  poem  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  lines,  under 
the  title  "Improvement."  The  meetings  were  kept 
up  for  two  years,  and  the  design  appears  to  have 
been  prosecuted  with  remarkable  zeal ;  one  half  of 
the  members  handing  in  at  each  weekly  meeting  writ 


66  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

ten  disquisitions  upon  topics  assigned  to  them,  and 
the  other  half  discussing  viva  voce  another  set  of 
questions,  in  the  affirmative  or  negative  according 
to  previous  arrangement.  The  writers  of  the  even- 
ing were  the  judges  of  the  speakers ;  the  majority 
pronouncing  the  verdict.  The  subjects  were  ex- 
tremely various  and  wide  in  scope :  The  existence 
of  fossils  upon  mountains :  Whether  extension  of 
territory  be  favorable  to  republican  government  ? 
Whether  poetry  has  been  favorable  to  morality  ? 
Whether  it  be  for  the  interest  of  a  student  to 
devote  himself  to  obtaining  college  rank,  or  to 
spend  his  time  industriously  in  some  other  way? 
Whether  theatrical  representations  be  advantageous 
to  morality  ?  This  last  question  was  decided  in  the 
negative,  Kent  and  Emerson  speaking  on  that  side.1 
In  addition  to  the  regular  weekly  performances 
more  elaborate  essays  and  even  original  poems  were 
read  from  time  to  time.  After  the  literary  exer- 
cises they  partook  of  a  frugal  supper,  the  total  ex- 
pense being  limited  to  two  dollars. 

In  an  obituary  notice  in  1869  of  his  classmate 
and  club-mate,  Cheney,  Emerson  professes  to  re- 
member the  Malaga  from  Warland's  (the  Cam- 

1  About  the  time  when  Emerson  graduated  I  find  in  his  note- 
books what  appears  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  series  of  letters  to 
some  newspaper,  on  the  Drama ;  declaring  his  hostility  to  the  ex. 
isting  stage,  and  enlarging  upon  the  web  of  corruption  spun  by 
Massinger,  Otway,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  etc.,  and  even  Shake- 
speare, but  urging  that  in  America,  the  land  of  experiments,  so 
potent  an  influence  might  be  used  in  the  cause  of  yirtue. 


SCHOOL-KEEPING.  67 

bridge  grocer)  as  more  delicious  than  any  wine  he 
had  tasted  since.  Earlier  than  this,  on  occasion  of 
some  college  reunion,  he  writes  in  his  journal :  "  The 
whole  mass  of  college  nonsense  came  back  in  a  flood  ; 
each  resumed  his  old  place.  I  too  resumed  my  old 
place,  and  found  myself,  as  of  old,  an  amused  spec- 
tator rather  than  a  fellow.  I  drank  a  good  deal  of 
wine  (for  me),  with  the  wish  to  raise  my  spirits  to 
the  pitch  of  good-fellowship  ;  but  wine  produced  on 
me  its  old  effect,  and  I  grew  grave  with  every  glass. 
Indignation  and  eloquence  will  excite  me,  but  wine 
does  not." 

In  the  immediate  retrospect  the  college  nonsense 
took  a  brighter  hue  from  contrast  with  the  gloom 
of  the  period  that  succeeded  it.  When  he  left  col- 
lege, what  he  had  before  him  was  an  indefinite  ex- 
tent of  school-keeping,  an  occupation  he  had  suffi- 
ciently tried  in  the  winters  of  the  college  course, 
—  usually,  I  suppose,  at  the  school  of  his  uncle, 
Reverend  Samuel  Ripley,  at  Waltham,  where  all 
the  brothers  were  assistants  in  turn.  In  his  fresh- 
man year  he  writes  to  his  brother  William  :  — 

WALTHAM,  February  7,  1818. 

Well,  my  dear  brother,  here  I  am,  safe  and 
sound,  as  yet  unmuzzled l  and  unsnowballed.  Since 
I  have  been  here  I  have  learned  to  skate,  rhymed, 

1  Being  "muzzled"  (I  know  not  if  the  phrase  survives  in  the 
present  generation  of  school-boys)  meant  having  one's  face  rubbed 
with  snow. 


68  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

written,  and  read,  besides  my  staple  commodity, 
school-keeping;  and  have  earned  me  a  new  coat, 
which  I  wear  to-morrow  to  Mr.  Gore's  to  dinner, 
by  invitation  from  King.  ...  I  did  hope  to  have 
my  merces  in  cash,  —  I  envied  you  bringing  your 
five-dollar  bills  to  mother,  —  but  Mr.  R.  said  I 
needed  a  coat,  and  sent  me  to  the  tailor's,  though 
I  should  rather  have  worn  my  old  coat  out  first, 
and  had  the  money ;  —  mean-minded  me  !  Just 
before  I  came  from  Boston,  Mr.  Frothingham  sent 
mother  a  note  containing  twenty  dollars,  given  him 
by  "  a  common  friend "  for  her,  with  a  promise  of 
continuing  to  her  ten  dollars  quarterly  for  the  use 
of  her  sons  in  college  ;  not  stipulating  the  time  of 
continuance.  At  this  time  the  assistance  was  pe- 
culiarly acceptable,  as  you  know.  It  is  in  this 
manner,  from  the  charity  of  others,  mother  never 
has  been,  and  from  our  future  exertions  I  hope 
never  will  be,  in  want.  It  appears  to  me  the  hap- 
piest earthly  moment  my  most  sanguine  hopes  can 
picture,  if  it  should  ever  arrive,  to  have  a  home, 
comfortable  and  pleasant,  to  offer  to  mother;  in 
some  feeble  degree  to  repay  her  for  the  cares  and 
woes  and  inconveniences  she  has  so  often  been  sub- 
ject to  on  our  account  alone.  To  be  sure,  after  talk- 
ing at  this  rate,  I  have  done  nothing  myself ;  but 
then  I've  less  faculties  and  age  than  most  poor 
collegians.  But  when  I  am  out  of  college  I  will, 
Deo  volente,  study  divinity  and  keep  school  at  the 


SCHOOL-KEEPING.  69 

same  time,  —  try  to  be  a  minister  and  have  a  house. 
I  '11  promise  no  farther.  .  .  . 

School-keeping  had  not  proved  an  attractive  oc- 
cupation for  him.  The  last  time  that  he  tried  it 
during  his  college  course,  "  in  my  log-house  on  the 
mountains,"  —  I  know  not  where,  —  his  disgust 
broke  out  in  an  unwonted  violence  of  expression : 

"  December  15,  1820.  I  claim  and  clasp  a  mo- 
ment's respite  from  this  irksome  school  to  saunter 
in  the  fields  of  my  own  wayward  thought.  But 
when  I  came  out  from  the  hot,  steaming,  stoved, 
stinking,  dirty  A  B  spelling-school,  I  almost  soared 
•and  mounted  the  atmosphere  at  breathing  the  free, 
magnificent  air,  the  breath  of  life.  It  was  a  de- 
lightful exhilaration,  but  it  soon  passed  off." 

His  next  experiment,  after  he  graduated,  was 
made  under  less  repellent  circumstances.  His 
brother  William  had  established  in  his  mother's 
house  in  Boston  a  school  for  young  ladies,  which 
had  now  been  two  years  in  successful  operation. 
Ralph  joined  him,  and  remained  as  assistant  for 
two  years,  and  then,  his  brother  going  to  Europe 
to  study  divinity  at  Gottingen,  a  year  longer  in 
sole  charge.  In  a  little  speech  of  friendly  greet- 
ing, many  years  afterwards,  to  some  of  his  former 
pupils  who  had  invited  him  to  meet  them,  —  Wil- 
liam being  in  New  York,  and  not  able  to  come,  — 
he  says :  — 


70  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  My  brother  was  early  old ;  he  entered  col- 
lege at  thirteen,  graduated  at  seventeen,  and  took 
charge  of  a  public  school  at  Kennebunk  for  a  year. 
Then,  at  eighteen,  offered  himself,  as  a  grave  and 
experienced  professor,  who  had  seen  much  of  life, 
and  was  ready  to  give  the  overflowing  of  his  wis- 
dom and  ripe  maturity  to  the  youth  of  his  native 
city.  His  mind  was  method  ;  his  constitution  was 
order;  and,  though  quiet  and  amiable,  the  tap 
of  his  pencil,  you  well  remember,  could  easily  en- 
force a  silence  and  attention  which  the  spasmodic 
activity  of  other  teachers  cannot  often  command. 
I  confess  to  an  utter  want  of  this  same  virtue.  I 
was  nineteen ;  had  grown  up  without  sisters,  and, 
in  my  solitary  and  secluded  way  of  living,  had  no 
acquaintance  with  girls.  I  still  recall  my  terrors 
at  entering  the  school;  my  timidities  at  French, 
the  infirmities  of  my  cheek,  and  my  occasional  ad- 
miration of  some  of  my  pupils,  —  absit  invidia 
verbo,  —  and  the  vexation  of  spirit  when  the  will  of 
the  pupils  was  a  little  too  strong  for  the  will  of  the 
teacher.  ...  I  am  afraid  none  but  I  remembers 
the  merit  of  the  '  compositions,'  which  I  carefully 
read,  and  with  the  wish  to  fix  their  comparative 
rank.  .  .  .  Now  I  have  two  regrets  in  regard  to 
the  school.  The  first  is  that  my  teaching  was  par- 
tial and  external.  I  was  at  the  very  time  already 
writing  every  night,  in  my  chamber,  my  first 
thoughts  on  morals  and  the  beautiful  laws  of  com- 


SCHOOL-KEEPING.  71 

pensation  and  of  individual  genius,  which  to  ob- 
serve and  illustrate  have  given  sweetness  to  many 
years  of  my  life.  I  am  afraid  no  hint  of  this  ever 
came  into  the  school,  where  we  clung  to  the  safe 
and  cold  details  of  languages,  geography,  arith- 
metic, and  chemistry.  Now  I  believe  that  each 
should  serve  the  other  by  his  or  her  strength,  not 
by  their  weakness ;  and  that,  if  I  could  have  had 
one  hour  of  deep  thought  at  that  time,  I  could  have 
engaged  you  in  thoughts  that  would  have  given 
reality  and  depth  and  joy  to  the  school,  and  raised 
all  the  details  to  the  highest  pleasure  and  noble- 
ness. Then,  I  should  have  shown  you  (as  I  did 
afterwards  to  later  friends)  the  poems  and  works 
of  imagination  I  delighted  in ;  the  single  passages 
which  have  made  some  men  immortal.  The  shar- 
ing a  joy  of  this  kind  makes  teaching  a  liberal  and 
delicious  artC  What  I  wonder  at  is  that  I  did  not 
read  to  you,  and  attempt  to  teach  you  to  read,  cer- 
tain selections  of  Shakespeare  and  the  poets,  in 
which  in  late  years  I  have  had  a  certain  degree  of 
success." 

The  recollections  of  one  of  his  pupils  are  very 
far  from  confirming  his  opinion  that  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful as  a  teacher.  She  remembers  him  as  en- 
tirely satisfactory  to  their  parents,  and  much  be- 
loved and  respected  in  the  school ;  also  that  the 
reading  of  poetry  was  one  of  the  regular  exercises. 


72  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Emerson  told  Mr.  Moncure  Con  way  that,  when 
he  graduated,  his  ambition  was  to  be  a  professor 
of  rhetoric  and  elocution.  I  find  in  one  of  his  later 
journals  the  query,  "Why  has  never  the  poorest 
country  college  offered  me  a  professorship  of  rheto- 
ric ?  I  think  I  could  have  taught  an  orator,  though 
I  am  none."  1  But  he  could  hardly  have  expected 
anything  of  the  kind  at  this  time.  Some  disap- 
pointment there  was ;  but  I  can  trace  nothing  defi- 
nite, unless  it  were  the  failure  to  obtain  an  usher- 
ship  at  the  Boston  Latin  School,  which  Dr.  Ripley 
thought  might  have  been  given  him  had  he  been 
more  studious  in  college. 

He  seems  much  better  off  as  he  was ;  yet  the 
episode  of  school-keeping  was  the  gloomiest,  or 
rather  it  was  the  one  gloomy  passage  in  his  life. 
In  looking  back,  a  year  after  he  left  college,  he 
felt  himself  "  a  changed  person  in  condition,  in 
hope.  I  was  then  delighted  with  my  recent  hon- 
ors ;  traversing  my  chamber,  flushed  and  proud  of 
a  poet's  fancies  and  the  day  when  they  were  to  be 
exhibited ;  pleased  with  ambitious  prospects,  and 
careless  because  ignorant  of  the  future.  But  now 
I  am  a  hopeless  school-master,  just  entering  upon 
years  of  trade,  to  which  no  distinct  limit  is  placed ; 
toiling  through  this  miserable  employment  with- 

1  He  said  to  Professor  James  B.  Thayer,  in  1873,  that  there 
was  never  a  time  in  which  he  would  not  have  accepted  a  prof  es« 
sorship  of  rhetoric  at  Cambridge. 


SCHOOL-KEEPING.  73 

out  even  the  poor  satisfaction  of  discharging  it 
well ;  for  the  good  suspect  me,  and  the  geese  dis- 
like me.  Hope,  it  is  true,  still  hangs  out,  though 
at  farther  distance,  her  gay  banners;  but  I  have 
found  her  a  cheat  once,  twice,  many  times,  and 
shall  I  trust  the  deceiver  again  ?  .  .  .  These  are 
the  suggestions  only  of  a  disappointed  spirit,  brood- 
ing over  the  fall  of  castles  in  the  air.  My  fate  is 
enviable,  contrasted  with  that  of  others  ;  I  have 
only  to  blame  myself,  who  had  no  right  to  build 
them." 

What  the  air-castles  were  that  faded  before 
the  sober  gaze  of  nineteen  I  find  nowhere  stated. 
Probably  they  were  as  indefinite  as  the  suspicion 
and  dislike  of  which  he  speaks ;  and,  like  them, 
only  the  reflection  of  aspirations  which  as  yet  took 
no  precise  shape,  and  hardly  even  indicated,  unless 
in  a  negative  way,  the  direction  in  which  they 
were  to  find  satisfaction. 

As  he  admits,  his  outward  fortunes  were  prosper- 
ous enough.  He  was  doing  what  he  had  expected 
to  do,  and  what  his  father  and  his  grandfather  had 
done  before  him ;  the  only  difference  was  that  in 
his  case  the  circumstances  were  unusually  favorable. 
Instead  of  the  refractory  material  and  the  scanty 
pay  that  would  naturally  fall  to  the  lot  of  a  young 
school-master,  his  pupils  were  young  women  from 
the  most  cultivated  class,  and  his  income,  all  things 
considered,  a  handsome  one.  He  says  he  earned  in 


74  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

his  three  years  of  school-keeping  in  Boston  from 
two  to  three  thousand  dollars,  while  he  could  sub- 
sist, if  he  saw  fit,  on  two  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
He  was  able  to  assist  his  mother  and  his  brothers, 
and  could  urge  William  not  to  scant  his  European 
studies,  and  not  to  come  home  without  seeing  Rome. 
To  his  aunt  Mary  Emerson,  indeed,  his  circum- 
stances appeared  "  too  easy  and  rhyme-like  ;  "  and 
she  feared  he  might  be  tempted  to  pause  on  the 
threshold  of  the  ministry  and  give  himself  up  to  a 
mere  literary  life,  or,  as  she  rather  ambiguously 
expressed  it,  "  never  to  exchange  the  lyre  for  the 
caduceus."  Yet,  though  the  present  was  tolerable 
enough,  the  future  was  full  of  perplexities.  To  his 
father  and  his  grandfather,  school  -  keeping  had 
been  merely  the  stepping-stone  to  an  assured  and 
honored  position,  the  duties  of  which  were  well  un- 
derstood and  marked  out,  and  such  as  he,  in  their 
place,  would  have  felt  himself  well  able  to  perform. 
But  now  the  whole  basis  of  the  ministry  had  begun 
to  shift,  —  or,  rather,  the  change  that  was  involved 
in  the  Congregational  system  of  worship  was  mak- 
ing itself  more  clearly  manifest.  In  the  Liberal 
churches,  at  least,  it  was  felt  more  and  more  that  it 
was  the  business  of  the  minister,  not  merely  to  keep 
alive  the  sentiment  of  worship  in  the  congregation, 
but,  if  need  were,  to  create  it,  and  that  for  this  pur- 
pose special  gifts  were  needed.  It  was  the  day  of  elo- 
quent young  preachers ;  Buckminster  and  Everett 


PROSPECTS.  75 

were  the  models  of  the  new  generation,  and  Emer- 
son had  gone  on  thus  far  in  full  confidence  that 
his  path  lay  in  the  same  direction.  But  now  that 
the  time  was  at  hand  when  he  must  consider  more 
nearly  how  his  youthful  dreams  were  to  be  realized, 
he  was  full  of  misgivings  :  — 

"  I  cannot  accurately  estimate  [he  writes  in  his 
journal]  my  chances  of  success  in  my  profession 
and  in  life.  Were  it  just  to  judge  the  future  from 
the  past,  they  would  be  very  low.  In  my  case  I 
think  it  is  not.  I  have  never  expected  success  in 
my  present  employment.  My  scholars  are  care- 
fully instructed  ;  my  money  is  faithfully  earned ; 
but  the  instructor  is  little  wiser,  and  the  duties 
were  never  congenial  with  my  disposition.  Thus 
far  the  dupe  of  hope,  I  have  trudged  on,  with  my 
bundle  at  my  back  and  my  eye  fixed  on  the  distant 
hill  where  my  burden  would  fall.  It  may  be  I 
shall  write,  dupe,  a  long  time  to  come,  and  the  end 
of  life  shall  intervene  betwixt  me  and  my  release. 
My  trust  is  that  my  profession  shall  be  my  re- 
generation of  mind,  manners,  inward  and  outward 
estate,  —  or,  rather,  my  starting-point ;  for  I  have 
hoped  to  put  on  eloquence  as  a  robe,  and  by  good- 
ness and  zeal  and  the  awf  ulness  of  virtue  to  press 
and  prevail  over  the  false  judgments,  the  rebel 
passions,  and  corrupt  habits  of  men.  We  blame 
the  past,  we  magnify  and  gild  the  future,  and  are 
not  wiser  for  the  multitude  of  days.  Spin  on,  ye  of 
the  adamantine  spindle,  spin  on  my  fragile  thread." 


76  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

That  the  mount  of  his  deliverance  seemed  as  far 
off  as  ever,  he  ascribed  characteristically  enough  to 
a  defect  in  himself,  his  "apathy,"  —  a  theme  to 
which  he  often  recurs  :  — 

"  It  is  a  curious  fact,  and  the  abstrusest  mystery 
that  darkens  our  existence,  how  men  should  hold 
such  a  transcendent  gift  as  thought  in  their  hands, 
such  a  key  to  infinite  pleasures,  and  show  such 
painful  reluctance  to  use  it.  In  youth  they  often 
appreciate  its  unspeakable  worth,  and  the  imagina- 
tion sometimes  revels  in  the  pictures  of  its  wealth. 
They  are  impatient  to  begin  the  journey  of  great- 
ness; to  enter  upon  the  exciting  scene,  glowing 
and  towering  in  magnificence  afar  before  their 
eyes.  But  ere  the  days  of  youth  have  gone  over 
their  heads  an  ungrateful  and  unaccountable  indo- 
lence comes  in  to  shut  their  eyes  upon  the  glorious 
prospect ;  or,  rather,  to  stop  their  pursuit,  without 
removing  its  brilliant  object." 

"  Once,  when  vanity  was  full  fed,  it  sufficed  to 
keep  me  at  work,  but  alas !  it  has  long  been  dying 
of  a  galloping  consumption,  and  the  Muse,  I  fear, 
will  die  too.  The  dreams  of  my  childhood  are  all 
fading  away  and  giving  place  to  some  very  sober 
and  very  disgusting  views  of  a  quiet  mediocrity 
of  talents  and  condition ;  nor  does  it  appear  that 
any  application  of  which  I  am  capable,  any  efforts, 
any  sacrifices,  could  at  this  moment  restore  any 
reasonableness  to  the  familiar  expectations  of  my 
earlier  youth." 


PROSPECTS.  77 

The  truth  was,  the  object,  upon  a  closer  ap- 
proach, had  lost  its  lustre.  The  greatness  and  the 
success  of  which  he  had  dreamed  were  not  such  as 
could  after  all  attract  him.  The  boyish  vision  of 
the  brilliant  pulpit-orator,  who  was  to  draw  men  to 
himself  and  to  religion  by  the  splendor  of  his  elo- 
quence, seemed  beyond  his  reach  because  at  heart 
he  had  no  desire  to  realize  it.  There  was  no  lead- 
ing in  his  nature  towards  a  personal  ascendency 
which  might  lend  authority  to  sacred  truth;  the 
leading  was  the  other  way,  towards  the  renounce- 
ment of  all  authority  and  all  official  sacredness  ; 
and  this  tendency,  though  it  had  not  yet  gathered 
strength  to  prevail,  was  strong  enough  to  prevent 
his  entering  with  an  assured  mind  upon  his  in- 
tended career. 

The  discouraged  tone  of  his  journals  (which  she 
had  asked  to  see)  struck  the  anxious  ear  of  aunt 
Mary  Emerson  in  her  retirement  in  the  wilds  of 
Maine,  and  did  not  altogether  displease  her ;  for 
what  she  dreaded  most  for  him  was  a  vulgar  suc- 


"  Is  the  Muse  [she  writes]  become  faint  and 
mean?  Ah,  well  she  may,  and  better,  far  better 
she  should  leave  you  wholly,  till  you  have  prepared 
for-  her  a  celestial  abode.  Poetry,  that  soul  of  all 
that  pleases  ;  the  philosophy  of  the  world  of  sense  ; 
the  Iris,  the  bearer  of  the  resemblances  of  uncre- 
ated beauty,  —  yet,  with  these  gifts,  you  flag! 


78  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Your  Muse  is  mean  because  the  breath  of  fashion 
has  not  puffed  her.  You  are  not  inspired  at  heart 
because  you  are  the  nursling  of  surrounding  cir- 
cumstances. You  become  yourself  a  part  of  the 
events  which  make  up  ordinary  life,  —  even  that 
part  of  the  economy  of  living  which  relates  in  the 
order  of  things  necessarily  to  private  and  social 
affections  rather  than  to  public  and  disinterested. 
Still,  there  is  an  approaching  period  I  dread  worse 
than  this  sweet  stagnation,  —  when  your  Muse 
shall  be  dragged  into  eclat.  Then  will  your  guar- 
dian angel  tremble  !  In  case  of  falling,  of  becom- 
ing deceived  and  vain,  there  will  yet  remain  a  hope 
that  your  fall  may  call  down  some  uncommon  effort 
of  mercy,  and  you  may  rise  from  the  love  of  de- 
ceitful good  to  that  of  real." 

She  counselled  retirement  and  seclusion,  and 
had  much  to  say  of  the  efficacy  of  a  country  life. 
He  replies :  — 

BOSTON,  June  10,  1822. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT:  .  .  .  William  and  I  have 
been  making  a  pilgrimage  on  foot,  this  vacation  (a 
fortnight),  and  went  as  far  as  Northborough,  where 
we  found  a  very  pretty  farm-house,  and  they  easily 
consented  to  board  us  for  a  week.  We  passed  our 
time  in  a  manner  exceedingly  pleasant,  and  drank 
as  deeply  of  those  delights  for  which  Vertumnus 
is  celebrated  as  might  be  permitted  to  degraded, 
uninitiated  cits.  I  cannot  tell,  but  it  seems  to  me 


PROSPECTS.  79 

that  Cambridge  would  be  a  better  place  to  study 
than  the  woodlands.  I  thought  I  understood  a  lit- 
tle of  that  intoxication  which  you  have  spoken  of, 
but  its  tendency  was  directly  opposed  to  the  slight- 
est effort  of  mind  or  body ;  it  was  a  soft,  animal 
luxury,  the  combined  result  of  the  beauty  which 
fed  the  eye,  the  exhilarating  Paradise  air  which 
fanned  and  dilated  the  sense,  the  novel  melody 
which  warbled  from  the  trees.  Its  first  charm 
passed  away  very  rapidly  with  a  longer  acquaint- 
ance, but  not  once  during  our  stay  was  I  in  any  fit 
mood  to  take  my  pen  "  and  rattle  out  the  battles 
of  my  thoughts,"  as  Ben  Jonson  saith  well.  We 
dwelt  near  a  pond  which  bore  the  name  of  Little 
Chauncey,  and  often  crossed  it  in  a  boat,  then  tied 
our  bark  to  a  tree  on  the  opposite  shore,  and 
plunged  into  the  pathless  woods,  into  forests  silent 
since  the  birth  of  time,  and  lounged  on  the  grass, 
with  Bacon's  Essays  or  Milton,  for  hours.  Per- 
haps in  the  autumn,  which  I  hold  to  be  the  finest 
season  of  the  year,  and  in  a  larger  abode,  the  mind 
might,  as  you  term  it,  return  upon  itself  ;  but  for 
a  year,  without  books,  it  would  become  intolerable. 
Do  not  think,  however,  that  I  rejoiced  to  get  home. 
When  our  visions  were  interrupted  by  a  sight  of  the 
State  House,  on  the  road,  returning,  I  averted  my 
face  as  did  the  Greek  from  the  fane  of  the  Furies. 
I  made  a  journal  as  we  went,  and  have  not 
read  it  over  myself,  but  apprehend  it  hath  too 


80  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

many  jokes  to  please  you;  it  was  written  for  a 
more  terrestrial  medium.  I  have  to  thank  you  for 
your  letter  and  its  literature,  but  you  should  have 
filled  the  sheet ;  you  sent  me  two  pages  of  blank 
paper,  and  I  would  have  you  remember  that  I  have 
more  at  home  than  I  can  fill.  I  am  a  little  sur- 
prised that  a  lady  of  your  erudition  should  have 
forgotten  that  Johnson's  poem  is  professedly  an 
imitation  of  the  tenth  Satire  of  Juvenal.  It  pro- 
ceeds upon  the  same  plan  as  do  many  of  Pope's 
Satires,  which  are  nothing  but  an  ingenious  adap- 
tation of  an  ancient  poem  to  modern  manners  and 
a  later  philosophy.  Perhaps  it  lessens  your  respect 
or  idolatry  of  the  poet,  considered  personally,  but, 
independently  of  this,  and  as  far  as  regards  the 
mere  sum  of  good  reading,  it  is  a  laudable  plan, 
for  it  submits  the  faults  of  one  poet  to  the  revision 
of  another  whom  the  distance  of  centuries  makes 
an  impartial  critic.  Thus  the  common  reader  is 
spared  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  or  the  mortifica- 
tion of  wanting  the  original;  while  the  classical 
reader  enjoys  a  double  pleasure  in  the  improved 
translation  :  first,  that  of  the  sentiments  ;  next,  the 
skill  and  wit  displayed  in  the  application  of  the  old 
to  the  new ;  as  of  a  compliment  addressed  to  Maece- 
nas, two  thousand  years  ago,  newly  applied  with  a 
lucky  exactness  to  Bolingbroke  or  Dorset.  I  am 
curious  to  read  your  Hindoo  mythologies.  One  is 
apt  to  lament  over  indolence  and  ignorance,  when 


PROSPECTS.  81 

he  reads  some  of  those  sanguine  students  of  the 
Eastern  antiquities,  who  seem  to  think  that  all  the 
books  of  knowledge  and  all  the  wisdom  of  Europe 
twice-told  lie  hid  in  the  treasures  of  the  Bramiiis 
and  the  volumes  of  Zoroaster.  When  I  lie  dream- 
ing on  the  possible  contents  of  pages  as  dark  to 
me  as  the  characters  on  the  seal  of  Solomon,  I  con- 
sole myself  with  calling  it  learning's  El  Dorado. 
Every  man  has  a  fairy-land  just  beyond  the  com- 
pass of  his  horizon :  the  natural  philosopher  yearned 
after  his  Stone ;  the  moral  philosopher  for  his 
Utopia ;  the  merchant  for  some  South  Sea  specula- 
tion ;  the  mechanic  for  perpetual  motion  ;  the  poet 
for  —  all  unearthly  things  ;  and  it  is  very  natural 
that  literature  at  large  should  look  for  some  fanci- 
ful stores  of  mind  which  surpassed  example  and 
possibility. 

I  know  not  any  more  about  your  Hindoo  con- 
vert [Rammohun  Roy?]  than  I  have  seen  in  the 
Christian  Register  and  am  truly  rejoiced  that 
Unitarians  have  one  trophy  to  build  up  on  the 
plain  where  the  zealous  Trinitarians  have  builded 
a  thousand.  There  are  two  rising  stars  in  our 
horizon  which  we  hope  shall  shed  a  benign  influ- 
ence from  the  sources  of  religion  and  genius.  I 
mean  Upham  and  [George]  Bancroft.  The  second 
is  expected  to  return  from  Europe  in  July,  and 
may  very  probably  succeed  Greenwood.  He  is  an 
indefatigable  scholar  and  an  accomplished  orator. 


82  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

.  .  .  Dr.  Warren  tells  Edward  he  had  better  voy- 
age, and  it  is  possible  he  may  go  to  Germany, 
and  thank  his  sickness  for  an  European  educa- 
tion ;  at  least  we  have  had  some  rambling  conver- 
sation about  such  a  project. 

I  must  beg  you  to  write  to  me,  and  see  no  rea- 
son why  you  should  excuse  yourself.  If  you  can- 
not write  now,  I  shall  be  prone  to  inquire  where 
are  those  boasted  virtues  of  hill  and  dale  that  you 
wot  of.  I  have  read  lately  much  history,  —  am 
amazed  at  the  insipidity  of  Mosheim.  Italian  his- 
tory is  very  eventful ;  vastly  more  so  than  any 
other,  I  believe.  There  seems  to  be  no  slumber, 
no  peace.  All  men's  energies  are  awake,  stirring 
the  elements  of  society ;  and  so  rapid  is  the  succes- 
sion of  political  events  that  you  are  not  acquainted 
with  any  line  of  policy  long  enough  to  become 
deeply  interested,  and  the  chronicles  become  as 
tiresome  from  their  variety  and  flutter  as  others  do 
from  their  monotony.  .  .  . 

Your  affectionate  nephew,  WALDO. 

She  rejoins :  — 

VALE,  Friday,  14,  1822. 

DEAR  WALDO  :  ...  So  your  journal  is  jokey. 
While  the  places  which  Virgil  and  Cicero  trod  are 
met  with  real  or  affected  enthusiasm,  the  children 
of  God  tread  on  his  footsteps  with  ennui.  You 
should  have  gone  separately.  Other  spirits  than 


PROSPECTS.  88 

Egerian    haunt   the    solitudes   of    perfect    retire- 
ment. .  .  . 

Then  you  find  no  necessary  sacredness  in  the 
country  !  Nor  did  Milton  ;  but  his  mind  and  his 
spirits  were  their  own  place,  and  came  when  he 
called  them,  in  the  solitude  of  darkness.  Solitude, 
which  to  people  not  talented  to  deviate  from  the 
beaten  track  is  the  safe  ground  of  mediocrity 
(without  offending),  is  to  learning  and  genius  the 
only  sure  labyrinth,  though  sometimes  gloomy,  to 
form  the  eagle-wing  that  will  bear  one  farther  than 
suns  and  stars.  Byron  and  Wordsworth  have  there 
best  and  only  intensely  burnished  their  pens. 
Would  to  Providence  your  unfoldings  might  be 
there  !  —  that  it  were  not  a  wild  and  fruitless  wish 
that  you  could  be  disunited  from  travelling  with 
the  souls  of  other  men  ;  of  living  and  breathing, 
reading  and  writing,  with  one  vital,  time-fated  idea, 
their  opinions. 

In  the  spring  of  1823,  her  wish  was  partly  grati- 
fied by  Mrs.  Emerson's  removal  with  her  house- 
hold to  Canterbury,  a  woodland  district  of  the  town 
of  Roxbury,  some  four  miles  from  Boston  as  it 
then  was,  but  now  within  the  city  limits  and  in- 
cluded in  the  Franklin  Park.  Here  they  hired  a 
farm-house  on  Canterbury  Lane,  —  also  called 
Dark  Lane,  or,  in  irony,  Light  Lane,  from  the 
gloom  of  the  overshadowing  woods ;  or  sometimes 


84  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Featherbed  Lane,  from  the  rough  pebbles  of  the 
road,  —  now  Walnut  Avenue.  The  place  was 
then,  what  to  some  extent  it  still  is,  a  picturesque 
region  of  rocks,  hills,  and  woods,  with  very  few 
habitations.  The  house,  I  am  informed,  was  one 
lately  removed  by  the  Park  Commissioners  ;  it 
stood  on  what  is  now  Williams  Street  (unless  it 
has  been  already  obliterated  in  the  Park  improve- 
ments), then  a  jut  from  the  lane. 

It  was  here,  in  April,  1824,  that  Emerson, 
"  stretched  beneath  the  pines  "  (which  were  cut 
down  shortly  afterwards),  wrote  his  "  Good-bye, 
proud  world,"  1  in  a  tone  that  has  led  to  the  infer- 
ence of  some  coldness  if  not  exclusion  from  the 
coteries  of  Boston,  such  as  Hawthorne,  Mr.  Lathrop 
tells  us,  found  in  Salem.  But  there  is  no  other 
indication  of  any  such  thing,  and  the  following  pas- 
sage in  his  journal,  written  at  this  time,  and  con- 
taining, no  doubt,  the  germ  of  the  poem,  has  the 
word  "  apocryphal  "  written  after  it :  — 

"  There  are  harder  crosses  to  bear  than  poverty, 
or  sickness,  or  death.  Are  you  armed  with  the  su- 
preme stoicism  of  a  pure  heart  and  a  lowly  mind  ? 
Can  you  hear,  unconcerned,  Pride's  supercilious 
taunt  and  Derision's  obstreperous  laugh  ?  Can 
you  lift  a  serene  face  against  the  whisper  that 
poisons  your  name  with  obloquy  ?  Can  you  set  un- 
conquerable virtue  against  the  seductions  of  the 
1  Collected  Writings,  ix.  37. 


PROSPECTS.  85 

flesh?  Can  you  give  the  care  of  the  tongue  to 
charity  and  caution  ?  Can  you  resist  the  soft  en- 
croachments of  sloth,  and  force  your  mind  and  your 
body  to  that  activity  which  duty  demands  ?  These 
are  the  real  difficulties  which  appall  and  press 
heavy  upon  a  serious  mind." 

All  the  offending  personages,  I  have  no  doubt, 
were  as  unreal  as  the  sins  at  which  he  hints.  Em- 
erson had  as  little  to  suffer  from  his  fellow-men  as 
from  the  reproaches  of  his  own  conscience,  and  in 
either  case  was  only  indulging  his  imagination  in  a 
poetic  vision.1  Had  he  been  a  "  Jacobin,"  that  is, 
a  Democrat,  there  might  have  been  some  question 
how  he  would  be  received  in  the  Boston  drawing- 
rooms,  even  so  late  as  1821.  But  he  was  a  good 
Federalist,  like  his  father,  and  he  never,  then  or 
afterwards,  would  have  met  with  exclusion  from 
any  society  in  Boston  that  he  cared  to  enter.2 

He  enjoyed  his  pines  and  rocks  with  Edward, 
who  graduated  in  1824  and  took  a  school  in  Rox- 
bury,  and  Charles,  who  entered  college  this  year, 
whenever  they  had  a  holiday ;  and  for  other  society 
sought  a  regular  correspondence  with  several  of  his 
classmates.  Some  of  his  letters  to  his  classmate 
Withington  have  been  published  in  the  Century 

1  He  omitted  the  verses  from  his  Selected  Poems.     See,  also, 
his  letter  to  Dr.  J.  F.  Clarke,  in  Dr.  Holmes's  Emerson,  p.  29. 

2  A  lady  who  remembered  that  time  told  me  that  there  was  no 
exclusiveness,  but  that  she  would  "  as  soon  have  expected  to  see 
a  cow  in  a  drawing-room  as  a  Jacobin." 


86  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

(July,  1883,  p.  454),  and  Mr.  J.  B.  Hill  has  a  large 
number,  from  which  he  kindly  permits  me  to  give 
the  following  extracts  :  — 

TO  JOHN    B.    HILL,    GARRISON    FOREST   ACADEMY, 
BALTIMORE. 

BOSTON,  March  12,  1822. 

MY  DEAR  CLASSMATE, — I  am  (I  wish  I  was 
otherwise)  keeping  a  school,  and  assisting  my  ven- 
erable brother  to  lift  the  truncheon  against  the 
fair-haired  daughters  of  this  raw  city.  It  is  but 
fair  that  those  condemned  to  this  delightful  task 
should  have  free  leave  to  waste  their  wits,  if  they 
will,  in  decrying  and  abominating  the  same.  To 
judge  from  my  own  happy  feelings,  I  am  fain  to 
think  that  since  Commencement  a  hundred  angry 
pens  have  been  daily  dashed  into  the  sable  flood  to 
deplore  and  curse  the  destiny  of  those  who  teach. 
Poor,  wretched,  hungry,  starving  souls !  How  my 
heart  bleeds  for  you !  Better  tug  at  the  oar,  dig  the 
mine,  or  saw  wood  ;  better  sow  hemp  or  hang  with 
it  than  sow  the  seeds  of  instruction.  .  .  .  Won't 
you  sit  down  immediately  and  entertain  your  poor 
brother  of  the  School  Militant  with  some  account 
of  yourself  and  your  region  ?  Write  sentiment, 
geography,  statistics,  Latin,  anything,  in  short,  in 
the  wide  world  but  mathematics.  For  I  am  truly 
ambitious  of  writing  letters,  and  burn  to  say  that  I 
correspond  with  the  reverend,  the  wise,  the  honor^ 


PROSPECTS.  87 

able  members  of  the  —  Conventicle  —  if  nothing 
else.  What  kind  of  people  are  the  Southerners  in 
your  vicinity  ?  You  know  our  idea  of  an  accom- 
plished Southerner  ;  to  wit,  as  ignorant  as  a  bear, 
as  irascible  and  nettled  as  any  porcupine,  as  polite 
as  a  troubadour,  and  a  very  John  Randolph  in  char- 
acter and  address.  .  .  .  Perhaps  you  have  seen 
"  Europe,"  the  most  considerable  American  book 
that  has  been  published,  the  most  removed  from 
our  business-like  habits,  the  most  like  Burke.  Its 
author  is  Alexander  Everett,  the  professor's  brother 
at  the  Hague.  You  would  mistrust  the  authen- 
ticity of  a  letter  coming  from  me  that  had  not  this 
name  in  it.  ... 

By  way  of  trying  my  pen  I  am  going  to  give 
you  an  insight  into  our  city  politics.  The  inhab- 
itants divide  themselves  into  three  great  classes : 
first,  the  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  talents ;  next, 
the  great  multitude  of  mechanics  and  merchants, 
and  the  good  sort  of  people  who  are  for  the  most  part 
content  to  be  governed  without  aspiring  to  have  a 
share  of  power  ;  and  lastly,  the  lowest  order  of  day- 
laborers  and  outcasts  of  every  description,  including 
school-masters.  In  this  goodly  assemblage,  until  the 
union  of  parties  at  the  election  of  President  Monroe, 
there  was  no  division  of  factions,  except  the  giant 
ones  of  Federalist  and  Democrat.  But  when  these 
died  away,  the  town  became  so  tiresomely  quiet, 
peaceful,  prosperous,  that  it  became  necessary  at 


88  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

once,  for  decent  variety,  to  introduce  some  new  dis- 
tinctions, some  semblance  of  discord.  A  parcel  of 
demagogues,  ambitious  I  suppose  of  being  known, 
or  hoping  for  places  as  partisans  which  they  would 
never  attain  as  citizens,  set  themselves  down  to  de- 
vise mischief.  Hence  it  has  followed  that  within  a 
twelvemonth  the  words  "aristocracy,"  "nabob," 
etc.,  have  begun  to  be  muttered.  The  very  natural 
circumstance  that  the  very  best  men  should  be  uni- 
formly chosen  to  represent  them  in  the  Legislature 
is  begun  to  be  called  a  formal  conspiracy  to  deprive 
them  of  their  rights,  and  to  keep  the  power  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  a  few.  Lately,  this  band  of  mur- 
murers  has  become  an  organized  party,  calling 
themselves  "the  Middling  Interest,"  and  have  made 
themselves  conspicuous  by  two  or  three  troublesome 
ebullitions  of  a  bad  spirit  at  the  town-meetings.  For 
the  purpose  of  looking  into  their  neighbors'  concerns, 
they  called  a  town-meeting,  where  they  appeared  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  secure  a  majority,  and  then 
voted  to  distribute  a  kind  of  Doomsday-Book ;  to 
wit,  a  statement  of  every  man's  property  and  tax, 
from  the  assessors'  books.  This,  you  may  easily 
conceive,  in  a  money-getting  town,  where  every  one 
conceals  his  coppers,  must  be  a  very  obnoxious 
measure.  Another  more  important  proceeding  at 
the  same  meeting  was  the  vote  that  the  Selectmen 
be  directed  to  instruct  the  Eepresentatives  to  obtain 
from  the  Legislature  leave  to  erect  wooden  build- 


PROSPECTS.  89 

ings,  which  has  long  been  against  law.  You  know 
nobody  ever  goes  to  a  town -meeting  who  is  not 
personally  interested  ;  these  votes,  therefore,  though 
easily  passed,  excited  a  general  indignation  when 
known,  and  a  remonstrance  was  sent  to  the  Leg- 
islature by  the  whole  respectable  portion  of  the 
town,  and  the  bill  was,  in  consequence,  rejected. 
By  dint  of  management,  the  other  party  have  con- 
trived to  persuade  the  mechanics  and  most  of  the 
second  class  that  it  is  their  interest  to  have  wooden 
buildings,  and  part  of  a  plan  to  deny  them,  and 
that  they  are  oppressed,  etc. ;  and  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  twenty-six  hundred  subscribers 
to  a  second  petition  to  the  Legislature,  which  will 
be  offered  at  the  next  session.  In  a  new  senatorial 
ticket  they  interfered,  but  did  not  succeed;  and 
lastly  they  have  been  very  pernicious  to  our  in- 
terests in  the  election  of  Mayor.1  (By  the  way, 
did  you  ever  see  a  live  Mayor  ?)  Mr.  [Harrison 
Gray]  Otis  was  nominated,  and  is,  you  know,  our 
first  citizen :  his  was  the  only  public  nomination, 
and  it  was  considered  certain  that  he  would  succeed  ; 
but  the  Middling  Interest  fixed  upon  [Josiah] 
Quincy,  and  on  the  day  of  election  no  choice  was 
made,  and  both  candidates  withdrew  their  names. 
By  this  ingenious  device  the  parties  were  reduced  to 
take  the  third  best,  and  acquiesce  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  our  present  sublime  Mayor  [John  Phillips], 
1  Boston  became  a  city  in  this  year. 


90  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

with  the  mortifying  reflection  that  Boston  has  many 
a  worthier  son  than  he.  Such  is  our  party  history, 
and  among  our  staid  countrymen  we  shall  hardly 
have  a  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  controversy,  though 
this  be  an  ill-managed,  poor-spirited  party,  and 
promises  little  good  to  our  civil  welfare.  .  .  . 

I  think,  Mr.  Hill,  we  rather  improve  in  the  book 
line.  Washington  Irving  is  just  about  to  publish  a 
book  called  "Bracebridge  Hall."  ...  N.  A.  Re- 
view grows  better  and  travels  farther,  and  though 
we  are  inundated  with  silly  poetry,  we  improve.  .  .  . 
Here  too  I  may  add  a  testimony  of  our  liberal  spirit, 
that  the  town  voted  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  to 
George  B.  Emerson  to  procure  philosophical  appara- 
tus for  the  Classical  School.  He  has  just  received 
part  of  his  instruments,  which  are  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  country.  [George]  Bancroft  is  expected  to 
return  from  Europe  in  July,  and  it  is  supposed  that 
he  will  be  the  successor  of  Mr.  Greenwood  at  the 
New  South  Church.  .  .  .  Recollect  that  I  have  al- 
tered my  name  from  Ralph  to  Waldo,  so  be  sure 
and  drop  the  first.  It  is  quite  a  marrying  time 
among  our  ministers ;  if  it  were  not  for  postage  I 
would  send  you  a  piece  of  Everett's  wedding-cake. 

July  3,  1822.  .  .  .  You  may  see  from  my  date 
that  we  are  upon  the  eve  of  our  great  national  an- 
niversary. Does  it  produce  much  excitement  in 
your  quarter  ?  I  wish  it  may  never  rise  in  storms, 
but  I  find  myself  a  little  prone  to  croaking  of  late, 


PROSPECTS.  91 

—  partly  because  my  books  warn  me  of  the  insta- 
bility of  human  greatness,  and  I  hold  that  govern- 
ment never  subsisted  in  such  perfection  as  here. 
Except  in  the  newspapers  and  the  titles  of  office, 
no  being  could  be  more  remote,  no  sound  so  strange. 
Indeed,  the  only  time  when  government  can  Jbe 
said  to  make  itself  seen  and  felt  is  our  festivals, 
when  it  bears  the  form  of  a  kind  of  general  com- 
mittee for  popular  amusements.  In  this  merry 
time,  and  with  real  substantial  happiness  above 
any  known  nation,  I  think  we  Yankees  have 
marched  on  since  the  Revolution  to  strength,  to 
honor,  and  at  last  to  ennui.  It  is  most  true  that 
the  people  (of  the  city,  at  least)  are  actually  tired 
of  hearing  Aristides  called  the  Just,  and  it  demon- 
strates a  sad  caprice  when  they  hesitate  about  put- 
ting on  their  vote  such  names  as  Daniel  Webster 
and  Sullivan  and  Prescott,  and  only  distinguish 
them  by  a  small  majority  over  bad  and  doubtful 
men.  .  .  .  Will  it  not  be  dreadful  to  discover  that 
this  experiment,  made  by  America  to  ascertain  if 
men  can  govern  themselves,  does  not  succeed  ;  that 
too  much  knowledge  and  too  much  liberty  make 
them  mad  ?  .  .  .  We  will  seek  to  believe  that  its 
decay  will  be  splendid  with  literature  and  the  arts, 
to  the  latest  time,  —  splendid  as  the  late  day  of 
Athens  and  of  Rome ;  and  a  century  hence,  if  the 
orator  lives  too  late  to  boast  of  liberty,  he  may  brag 
of  past  renown  and  present  Muses.  .  .  .  We  citi- 


92  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

zens  venture  to  deny  the  "  Pirate  "  a  little  of  the 
reverence  we  have  accorded  to  his  predecessors, 
and  are  divided  upon  the  subject  of  the  "  Spy ; " 
many  preferring  it  to  the  last  book,  which  opinion 
I  personally  spurn.  .  .  .  Our  economical  citizens 
have  been  quite  dead  to  "  Bracebridge  Hall,"  since 
its  price  was  known.  I  have  neither  read  it  nor 
seen  a  single  individual  who  has  read  it.  The  ex- 
tracts which  I  have  met  with  have  disappointed 
me  much,  as  he  has  left  his  fine  "  Sketch-Book " 
style  for  the  deplorable  Dutch  wit  of  "  Knicker- 
bocker," which  to  me  is  very  tedious.  .  .  . 

BOSTON,  November  12,  1822. 

.  .  .  By  dint  of  much  electioneering  the  good 
cause  has  succeeded,  and  we  are  sending  our  Giant 
down  among  you  false  Southrons.  We  are  proudly 
anticipating  the  triumph  of  a  Northern  interest  to 
be  begun  or  to  be  achieved  by  Mr.  Webster.  I 
think  I  recorded  in  a  former  letter  the  rise  of  the 
Middling  Interest :  this  party  only  unites  the  old 
Democratic  party  under  a  new  name,  for  this  last 
regularly  hold  a  mock  caucus,  and  agree  to  support 
the  candidate  whom  the  Middling  Interest  have 
nominated.  I  think  Webster  had  about  two  thirds 
of  the  whole  number  of  votes.  .  .  .  Think  you 
that  our  Scottish  Enchanter  is  not  one,  but  many  ? 
"  Peveril  of  the  Peak,"  long  since  announced,  has 
halted  on  his  journey.  As  to  the  "  Fortunes,"  I 


PROSPECTS.  93 

think  it  rather  shows  hurry  than  exhausted  strength. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  merit  in  supporting  the  in- 
terest of  the  book  so  long  by  nothing  but  conversa- 
tion, and  I  think  that  everybody  who  has  been  at 
college  recognizes  Lord  Dalgarno.  One  good  book 
I  advise  you  to  read,  if  you  have  not,  with  all  con- 
venient celerity,  —  Stewart's  last  Dissertation,  one 
of  the  most  useful  octavos  extant.  It  saves  you 
the  toil  of  turning  over  a  hundred  tomes  in  which 
the  philosophy  of  the  mind  since  the  revival  of 
letters  is  locked  up.  There  is  a  class  of  beings 
which  I  very  often  wish  existed  on  earth,  —  Immor- 
tal Professors,  —  who  should  read  all  that  is  writ- 
ten, and  at  the  end  of  each  century  should  publicly 
burn  all  the  superfluous  pages  in  the  world.  Now, 
such  a  book  as  Stewart's  answers  this  purpose  ad- 
mirably,-under  the  head  Philosophy.  If  our  Im- 
mortal Professors  were  appointed  to-day,  we  should 
rapidly  find  that  the  literary  world  was  but  a  Don 
Quixote's  library. 

January  3, 1823.  .  .  .  My  sole  answer  and  apol- 
ogy to  those  who  inquire  about  my  studies  is,  —  I 
keep  school.  I  study  neither  law,  medicine,  nor 
divinity,  and  write  neither  poetry  nor  prose.  .  .  . 
I  am  happy  to  contradict  the  rumors  about  Ban- 
croft. I  heard  him  preach  at  New  South  a  few 
Sabbaths  since,  and  was  much  delighted  with  his 
eloquence.  So  were  all.  He  needs  a  great  deal  of 
cutting  and  priming,  but  we  think  him  an  infant 


94  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Hercules.  All  who  know  him  agree  in  this,  that 
he  has  improved  his  time  thoroughly  in  Gottingen. 
He  has  become  a  perfect  Greek  scholar,  and  knows 
well  all  that  he  pretends  to  know ;  as  to  divinity, 
he  has  never  studied  it,  but  was  approbated  abroad. 
Our  theological  sky  blackens  a  little,  or  else  the 
eyes  of  our  old  men  are  growing  dim.  But  certain 
it  is  that  with  the  flood  of  knowledge  and  genius 
poured  out  upon  our  pulpits,  the  light  of  Chris- 
tianity seems  to  be  somewhat  lost.  The  young 
imagine  they  have  rescued  and  purified  the  Chris- 
tian creed  ;  the  old,  that  the  boundless  liberality  of 
the  day  has  swept  away  the  essence  with  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  Gospel,  and  has  arrived  at  too  scepti- 
cal refinements.  An  exemplary  Christian  of  to- 
day, and  even  a  minister,  is  content  to  be  just  such 
a  man  as  was  a  good  Roman  in  the  days  of  Cicero, 
or  of  the  imperial  Antonines.  Contentment  with 
the  moderate  standard  of  pagan  virtue  implies  that 
there  was  no  very  urgent  necessity  for  Heaven's 
last  revelation  ;  for  the  laws  of  morality  were  writ- 
ten distinctly  enough  before,  and  philosophy  had 
pretty  lively  dreams  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
.  .  .  Presbyterianism  and  Calvinism,  at  the  South 
at  least,  make  Christianity  a  more  real  and  tangi- 
ble system,  and  give  it  some  novelties  which  were 
worth  unfolding  to  the  ignorance  of  men.  And 
this,  I  think,  is  the  most  which  can  be  said  of  Or- 
thodoxy. When  I  have  been  at  Cambridge  and 


PROSPECTS.  95 

studied  divinity,  I  will  tell  you  whether  I  can  make 
out  for  myself  any  better  system  than  Luther  or 
Calvin,  or  the  liberal  besoms  of  modern  days.  I 
am  tired  and  disgusted  with  preaching  which  I 
have  been  accustomed  to  hear.  I  know  that  there 
are  in  my  vicinity  clergymen  who  are  not  merely 
literary  or  philosophical.  ...  I  have  been  attend- 
ing Professor  Everett's  lectures,  which  he  has  be- 
gun to  deliver  in  this  city,  upon  Antiquities.  I  am 
as  much  enamored  as  ever  with  the  incomparable 
manner  of  my  old  idol,  though  much  of  his  matter 
is  easily  acquired  from  common  books.  TV^e  think 
strong  sense  to  be  his  distinguishing  feature ;  he 
never  commits  himself,  never  makes  a  mistake.  .  .  . 
Barnwell,  I  am  told,  is  about  finishing,  or  has  ac- 
tually finished,  his  studies.  If  you  know  anything 
about  him,  or  poor  Motte,  or  Robert  Gourdin, 
communicate,  communicate.  You  have  other  cor- 
respondents here,  or  I  would  subjoin  a  list  of  the 
acts  and  lives  of  your  classmates  in  my  vicinity.  I 
fervently  hope  —  unsocial  being  as  I  am  —  that 
the  warm  fraternal  feelings  which  burn  so  brightly 
at  the  first  separation  of  a  class  are  not  wholly 
quenched  as  we  grow  older. 

February  27,  1823.  Come  out  thence  and  pluck 
out  thy  lot  of  life  from  the  abundance  of  the 
North.  Everything  will  pass  in  this  land  of  no- 
tions. Courage  and  confidence  will  match  the 
world ;  will  take  human  affections  and  gold  by 


96  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

storm.  The  complaint  is  old  as  the  world  that 
merit  is  neglected.  The  humble,  the  bashful,  the 
poor,  the  whole  uncounted  host  of  all  the  unlucky, 
take  up  this  cry  and  repeat  it  until  they  believe  it. 
For  my  part,  I  was  always  one  of  the  loudest; 
holding  it  to  be  a  sound  and  profound  remark. 
.  .  .  The  "  Pioneers  "  I  like  very  much.  I  hope 
they  have  found  their  way  to  the  Garrison.  The 
last  -2V.  A.  fteview  is  full  of  wit  and  literature,  of 
which  the  Idol  wrote  six  articles.  .  .  . 

LIGHT  LANE,  LOWER  CANTERBURY, 
ROXBURY,  MASSACHUSETTS,  June  19,  1823. 

...  I  commend  to  your  especial  notice  the  date 
of  this  epistle,  which  will  show  you  that  I  am  liv- 
ing in  the  country.  Here  my  only  ejaculation  is, 
O  fortunati  nimium,  as  of  yore,  and  I  teach,  ay, 
teach  in  town,  and  then  scamper  out  as  fast  as  our 
cosset  horse  will  bring  us,  to  snuff  the  winds  and 
cross  the  wild  blossoms  and  branches  of  the  green 
fields.  I  am  seeking  to  put  myself  on  a  footing  of 
old  acquaintance  with  Nature,  as  a  poet  should  ; 
but  the  fair  divinity  is  somewhat  shy  of  my  ad- 
vances, and  I  confess  I  cannot  find  myself  quite  as 
perfectly  at  home  on  the  rock  and  in  the  wood  as 
my  ancient,  and  I  might  say  infant,  aspirations  led 
me  to  expect.  My  aunt  (of  whom  I  think  you 
have  heard  before,  and  who  is  alone  among  women) 
has  spent  a  great  part  of  her  life  in  the  country,  is 


PROSPECTS.  97 

an  idolater  of  nature,  and  counts  but  a  small  num- 
ber who  merit  the  privilege  of  dwelling  among  the 
mountains,  —  the  coarse,  thrifty  cit  profanes  the 
grove  by  his  presence,  —  and  she  was  anxious  that 
her  nephew  might  hold  high  and  reverential  no- 
tions regarding  it,  as  the  temple  where  God  and 
the  mind  are  to  be  studied  and  adored,  and  where 
the  fiery  soul  can  begin  a  premature  communica- 
tion with  the  other  world.  When  I  took  my  book, 
therefore,  to  the  woods,  I  found  nature  not  half 
poetical,  not  half  visionary,  enough.  There  was 
nothing  which  the  most  froward  imagination  would 
construe  for  a  moment  into  a  satyr  or  dryad.  No 
Greek  or  Roman  or  even  English  fantasy  could 
deceive  me  one  instant  into  the  belief  of  more  than 
met  the  eye.  In  short,  I  found  that  I  had  only 
transplanted  into  the  new  place  my  entire  personal 
identity,  and  was  grievously  disappointed.  Since 
I  was  cured  of  my  air-castles  I  have  fared  some- 
what better ;  and  a  pair  of  moonlight  evenings 
have  screwed  up  my  esteem  several  pegs  higher, 
by  supplying  my  brain  with  several  bright  frag- 
ments of  thought,  and  making  me  dream  that  mind 
as  well  as  body  respired  more  freely  here.  And 
there  is  an  excellence  in  nature  which  familiarity 
never  blunts  the  sense  of,  —  a  serene  superiority  to 
man  and  his  art,  in  the  thought  of  which  man 
dwindles  to  pigmy  proportions.  ...  In  writing,  as 
in  all  things  else,  I  follow  my  caprice,  and  my  pen 


98  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

has  played  me  many  tricks  lately  in  taking  a  holi- 
day somewhat  longer  than  his  wont,  and  sore 
against  my  will ;  for  if  my  scribbling  humor  fails 
to  come  upon  me,  I  am  as  uneasy  as  a  cow  un- 
milked,  —  pardon  the  rusticity  of  the  image,  —  and 
in  the  end  must  yield  my  brain's  yeasty  burden,  or 
die.  .  .  .  Bancroft  and  Cogswell  have  issued  their 
prospectus  ;  they  have  obtained  a  house  at  North- 
ampton, and  propose  to  begin,  with  fifteen  scholars 
only,  in  October.  Board  and  tuition  three  hun- 
dred dollars  per  annum.  I  mourn,  because  good 
school-masters  are  plenty  as  whortleberries,  but 
good  ministers  assuredly  are  not,  and  Bancroft 
might  be  one  of  the  best.  ...  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  where  I  live.  The  Dedham  turnpike,  which 
is  only  a  continuation  of  the  Main  Street  in  Bos- 
ton, leads  you,  after  about  two  miles,  to  a  lane,  the 
first  left-hand  turning  upon  the  turnpike.  Go  to 
the  head  of  said  lane  and  turn  to  the  right,  and 
you  will  straightway  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mr. 
Stedman  Williams,  a  farmer  of  thirty  years'  stand- 
ing, in  whose  vicinity  we  live,  and  whose  tenants 
we  are.  Ask  him. 

They  remained  in  Canterbury  a  year  and  a  half, 
until  February,  1825,  when  Mrs.  Emerson  removed 
to  Boston,  and  Waldo  to  Cambridge,  where  his 
mother  joined  him  in  April  of  the  following  year. 
Charles  was  in  college  there.  Waldo  was  entering 


PROSPECTS.  99 

the  Divinity  School.  Bulkeley,  a  pleasant,  con- 
scientious boy,  between  Edward  and  Charles  in 
age,  had  left  them.  He  had  never  grown  up  in 
mind  beyond  his  childhood,  and  now,  beginning  to 
be  restless  at  home,  it  was  thought  best  to  place 
him  under  careful  guardianship,  at  a  distance. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PREPARATION   FOR  THE   MINISTRY.  —  TRIP  TO 
THE  SOUTH.  —  RETURN  HOME. 

1824-1829. 

BEFORE  leaving  Canterbury,  Emerson,  in  the 
following  passage  in  his  journal,  took  stock  of  his 
prospects :  — 

"  Sunday,  April  24,  1824.  I  am  beginning  my 
professional  studies.  In  a  month  I  shall  be  legally 
a  man ;  and  I  deliberately  dedicate  my  time,  my 
talents,  and  my  hopes  to  the  church.  Man  is  an 
animal  that  looks  before  and  after,  and  I  should  be 
loath  to  reflect,  at  a  remote  period,  that  I  took  so 
solemn  a  step  in  my  existence  without  some  care- 
ful examination  of  my  past  and  present  life.  I 
cannot  dissemble  that  my  abilities  are  below  my 
ambition ;  and  I  find  that  I  judged  by  a  false 
criterion  when  I  measured  my  powers  by  my  abil- 
ity to  understand  and  to  criticise  the  intellectual 
character  of  another.  I  have,  or  had,  a  strong  im- 
agination, and  consequently  a  keen  relish  for  the 
beauties  of  poetry.  My  reasoning  faculty  is  pro- 
portionably  weak ;  nor  can  I  ever  hope  to  write  a 
Butler's  '  Analogy  '  or  an  '  Essay '  of  Hume.  Nor 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.      101 

is  it  strange  that  with  this  confession  I  should 
choose  theology  ;  for  the  highest  species  of  reason- 
ing upon  divine  subjects  is  rather  the  fruit  of  a 
sort  of  moral  imagination  than  of  the  reasoning 
machines,  such  as  Locke,  and  Clarke,  and  David 
Hume.  Dr.  Channing's  Dudleian  Lecture  is  the 
model  of  what  I  mean  .  .  .  [for  law  and  medicine 
he  feels  himself  unfit],  but  in  divinity  I  hope  to 
thrive.  I  inherit  from  my  sire  a  formality  of  man- 
ners and  speech,  but  I  derive  from  him  or  his  pa- 
triotic parent  a  passionate  love  for  the  strains  of 
eloquence.  I  burn  after  the  aliquid  immensum 
infinitumque  which  Cicero  desired.  What  we 
ardently  love  we  learn  to  imitate.  But  the  most 
prodigious  genius,  a  seraph's  eloquence,  will  shame- 
fully defeat  its  own  end  if  it  has  not  first  won  the 
heart  of  the  defender  to  the  cause  he  defends." 

The  eloquence  he  so  ardently  desired  could  not, 
he  had  begun  to  feel,  be  put  on  as  a  robe,  —  it 
could  only  be  the  natural  outcome  of  entire  convic- 
tion ;  and  he  set  himself  to  examine  the  dogmas  he 
was  to  teach,  in  order  to  make  sure,  not  merely 
that  there  was  nothing  in  them  which  he  was  con- 
cerned to  deny,  but  that  they  were  the  genuine,  un- 
forced expression  of  his  own  beliefs. 

Speculative  difficulties  never  much  troubled  Em- 
erson at  any  time.  When  they  came  in  his  way  he 
quietly  shelved  them,  and  went  on  registering  the 


102  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

facts  that  appeared  to  make  for  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  without  feeling  it  necessary  to  strike  a  bal- 
ance and  make  up  the  final  account.  But  at  this 
time,  when  he  was  making  ready  to  teach  others, 
he  felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to  prepare  himself  to 
give  the  reasons  for  his  faith. 

During  the  Canterbury  residence  he  had  turned 
for  aid,  he  tells  Mr.  Hill,  to  one  or  two  clergy- 
men in  his  vicinity,  "  who  are  not  merely  literary 
or  philosophical ; "  especially  to  Dr.  Channing, 
under  whose  direction  he  wished  to  place  himself. 
Dr.  Channing  received  him  kindly,  gave  him  a  list 
of  books  to  read,  and  was  ready  to  talk  with  him 
from  time  to  time,  but  would  not  undertake  the 
direction  of  his  studies ;  indeed,  seemed  to  be  hardly 
capable,  Emerson  said,  of  taking  another  person's 
point  of  view,  or  of  communicating  himself  freely 
in  private  conversation.  Neither  of  them  was  par- 
ticularly gifted  iu  this  respect,  and  they  never 
really  came  together.  Emerson  greatly  admired 
Channing's  sermons,  above  all  the  famous  Dudleian 
Lecture  ;  but  he  says  of  him  :  "  He  can  never  be 
reported,  for  his  eye  and  his  voice  cannot  be 
printed,  and  his  discourses  lose  what  was  best  in 
wanting  them." 

He  turned  also  to  his  aunt  Mary  Emerson,  to 
see  what  aid  could  be  had  from  her  sibylline  in- 
spirations :  — 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.      103 
ROXBUKY,  October  16,  1823. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT:  ...  I  have  a  catalogue  of 
curious  questions,  that  have  been  long  accumulat- 
ing, to  ask  you.  ...  I  ramble  among  doubts,  to 
which  my  reason  offers  no  solution.  Books  are  old 
and  dull  and  unsatisfactory ;  the  pen  of  a  living 
witness  and  faithful  lover  of  these  mysteries  of 
Providence  is  worth  all  the  volumes  of  all  the  cen- 
turies. Now  what  is  the  good  end  answered  in 
making  these  mysteries  to  puzzle  all  analysis? 
What  is  the  ordinary  effect  of  an  unexplicable 
enigma  ?  Is  it  not  to  create  opposition,  ridicule, 
and  bigoted  scepticism  ?  Does  the  universe,  great 
and  glorious  in  its  operation,  aim  at  the  sleight  of  a 
mountebank  who  produces  a  wonder  among  the  ig- 
norant by  concealing  the  causes  of  unexpected  ef- 
fects ?  All  my  questions  are  usually  started  in  the 
infancy  of  inquiry,  but  are  also,  I  fear,  the  longest 
stumbling-blocks  in  philosophy's  way.  So  please 
tell  me  what  reply  your  active  meditations  have 
forged  in  metaphysical  armory  to  —  what  is  the 
origin  of  evil?  And  what  becomes  of  the  poor 
slave,  born  in  chains,  living  in  stripes  and  toil, 
who  has  never  heard  of  virtue  and  never  prac- 
tised it,  and  dies  cursing  God  and  man  ?  Must  he 
die  in  eternal  darkness,  because  it  has  been  his  lot 
to  live  in  the  shadow  of  death  ?  A  majority  of  the 
living  generation,  and  of  every  past  generation 


104  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

known  in  history,  are  worldly  and  impure ;  or,  at 
best,  do  not  come  up  to  the  strictness  of  the  rule 
enjoined  upon  human  virtue.  These,  then,  cannot 
expect  to  find  favor  in  the  spiritual  region  whither 
they  travel.  How  is  it,  then,  that  a  Benevolent 
Spirit  persists  in  introducing  on  to  the  stage  of  ex- 
istence millions  of  new  beings  in  incessant  series 
to  pursue  the  same  wrong  road  and  consummate 
the  same  tremendous  fate  ?  And  yet,  if  you  waver 
towards  the  clement  side  here,  you  incur  a  perilous 
responsibility  of  preaching  smooth  things.  And,  as 
to  the  old  knot  of  human  liberty,  our  Alexanders 
must  still  cut  its  Gordian  twines.  Next  comes  the 
Scotch  Goliath,  David  Hume ;  but  where  is  the  ac- 
complished stripling  who  can  cut  off  his  most  met- 
aphysical head  ?  Who  is  he  that  can  stand  up  be- 
fore him,  and  prove  the  existence  of  the  universe 
and  its  Founder  ?  He  hath  an  adroiter  wit  than 
all  his  forefathers  in  philosophy  if  he  will  confound 
this  uncircumcised.  The  long  and  dull  procession 
of  reason  ers  that  have  followed  since  have  chal- 
lenged the  awful  shade  to  duel,  and  struck  the  air 
with  their  puissant  arguments.  But  as  each  new- 
coiner  blazons  "  Mr.  Hume's  objections "  on  his 
pages,  it  is  plain  they  are  not  satisfied  the  victory 
is  gained.  Now,  though  every  one  is  daily  referred 
to  his  own  feelings  as  a  triumphant  confutation  of 
the  glozed  lies  of  this  deceiver,  yet  it  would  as- 
suredly make  us  feel  safer  to  have  our  victorious 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.      105 

answer  set  down  in  impregnable  propositions.  You 
have  not  thought  precisely  as  others  think ;  and  you 
have  heretofore  celebrated  the  benevolence  of  De 
Stael,  who  thought  for  her  son.  Some  revelation 
of  nature  you  may  not  be  loath  to  impart,  and  a 
hint  which  solves  one  of  my  problems  would  satisfy 
me  more  with  my  human  lot. 

Dr.  Channing  is  preaching  sublime  sermons 
every  Sunday  morning  in  Federal  Street,  one  of 
which  I  heard  last  Sunday,  and  which  surpassed 
Everett's  eloquence.  It  was  a  full  view  of  the  sub- 
ject of  the  light  of  Providence  compared  with  Na- 
ture, and  to  show  the  insufficiency  of  the  latter 
alone.  Revelation  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  order 
of  things  as  any  other  event  in  the  universe. 
Your  affectionate  and  obliged  nephew, 

R.  WALDO  E. 

And  this,  without  date,  but  about  the  same 
time  :  — 

"  I  am  blind,  I  fear,  to  the  truth  of  a  theology 
which  I  can't  but  respect  for  the  eloquence  it  be- 
gets, and  for  the  heroic  life  of  its  modern,  and  the 
heroic  death  of  its  ancient,  defenders.  I  acknowl- 
edge it  tempts  the  imagination  with  a  high  epic 
(and  better  than  epic)  magnificence,  but  it  sounds 
like  nonsense  in  the  ear  of  understanding.  The 
finite  and  flitting  kingdoms  of  this  world  may  for- 
get, in  the  course  of  ages,  their  maxims  of  govern- 


106  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

ment,  and  annul  to-day  the  edict  of  a  thousand 
years.  But  that  the  administration  of  eternity  is 
fickle,  that  the  God  of  revelation  hath  seen  cause 
to  repent  and  botch  up  the  ordinances  of  the  God 
of  Nature,  I  hold  it  not  irreverent  but  impious  in 
us  to  assume.  Yet  Paley's  deity  and  Calvin's  deity 
are  plainly  two  beings;  both  sublime  existences, 
but  one  a  friend  and  the  other  a  foe  to  that  ca- 
pacity of  order  and  right,  to  that  understanding, 
which  is  made  in  us  arbiter  of  things  seen,  the 
prophet  of  things  unseen.  When  I  see  the  just 
and  good  of  all  ages  consenting  to  a  single  creed 
that  taught  the  infinite  perfection  and  paternal 
character  of  God  and  the  accountableness  of  man, 
I  cannot  help  acknowledging  the  just  and  invaria- 
ble fruit  of  those  means  of  information  that  are  put 
in  all  hands.  I  cannot  help  revolting  from  the 
double  deity,  gross,  Gothic  offspring  of  some  Ger- 
man school.  I  suppose  you  will  think  me  so  dazzled 
by  a  flambeau  that  I  cannot  see  the  sun,  when  I 
say  that  the  liberality  of  the  age,  though  it  stray 
into  license  and  deism  "... 

The  conclusion  is  wanting,  but  the  drift  may  be 
guessed  from  the  following  scrap  "from  Water- 
ford  "  copied  in  his  journal :  — 

"  He  talks  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  God  of  mercy, 
what  a  subject !  Holy  Ghost  given  to  every  man  in 
Eden  ;  it  was  lost  in  the  great  contest  going  on  in 
the  vast  universe,  —  it  was  lost,  stifled  ;  it  was  re- 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.      107 

given  embodied  in  the  assumed  humanity  of  the 
Son  of  God.  And  since,  —  the  reward  of  prayer, 
agony,  self-immolation !  Dost  not  like  the  faith 
and  the  means  ?  Take  thy  own,  or  rather  the  dic- 
tates of  fashion.  .  .  .  Would  to  God  thou  wert 
more  ambitious,  —  respected  thyself  more  and  the 
world  less.  Thou  wouldst  not  to  Cambridge.  True, 
they  use  the  name  Christo,  but  that  venerable  in- 
stitution, it  is  thought,  has  become  but  a  feeble, 
ornamental  arch  in  the  great  temple  which  the 
Christian  world  maintains  to  the  honor  of  his 
name.  It  is  but  a  garnished  sepulchre,  where  may 
be  found  some  relics  of  the  body  of  Jesus,  —  some 
grosser  parts  which  he  took  not  at  his  ascent,  and 
which  will  be  forgotten  and  buried  forever  beneath 
the  flowerets  of  genius  and  learning,  if  the  master- 
spirits of  such  as  Appleton,  Chalmers,  and  Stewart, 
and  the  consecrated  Channing  do  not  rescue  it  by 
a  crusade  of  faith  and  lofty  devotion.  The  nature 
and  limits  of  human  virtue,  its  dangers,  its  origin, 
4  questions  answered  at  Cambridge,  easily,'  —  God, 
forgive  thy  child  his  levity,  —  subjects  veiled  in 
something  of  thine  own  awful  incomprehensibility, 
soothed  only  by  the  faith  which  reason  leaves,  but 
can  never  describe.  .  .  .  Then  you  do  not  go  to 
Stewart  at  Andover  ?  You  might  like  him,  though 
he  makes  mouths  at  the  heartless  [  ]  of 

kindnesses  which  tickle,  not  benefit,  the  weak 
world.  Why  did  you  not  study  under  the  wing  of 


108  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Charming,  which  was  never  pruned  at  Cambridge  ? 
If  he  advised  Cambridge,  he  is  not  able  or  good 
enow  to  set  out  alone,  though  he  avows  dissent  in 
some  points.  Alas  that  you  are  there  !  The  pub- 
lic ear,  weary  of  the  artifices  of  eloquence,  will  ask 
for  the  wants  of  the  soul  to  be  satisfied.  May  you 
be  among  others  who  will  prove  a  Pharos  to  your 
country  and  times.  But  I  wander  from  the  design 
of  writing.  It  is  to  say  that  the  years  of  levity 
and  pride,  etc.  [which  render  me,  Emerson  inserts, 
unworthy  to  speak  of  the  heights  of  religion],  I 
cannot  but  think  were  owing  to  the  atmosphere  of 
theology,  to  my  own  speculations,  to  what  is  worse 
and  certain,  the  sin  of  human  nature.  Could  years 
of  penitence  restore  me  the  last  twenty  years  !  It 
was  pretty,  it  seemed  best,  to  tell  children  how 
good  they  were !  The  time  of  illusion  and  child- 
hood is  past,  and  you  will  find  mysteries  in  man 
which  baffle  genius." 

Here  is  a  scrap  apparently  from  one  of  his  let- 
ters:— 

"  All  I  said  was  this,  —  that,  a  priori,  we  know 
no  reason  why  God  may  not  exist  in  a  threefold 
unity ;  but  that  since  the  manner  of  such  an  exist- 
ence is  inconceivable  to  our  minds,  he  would  never 
have  revealed  to  us  such  an  existence  which  we  can 
neither  describe  nor  comprehend.  Infinite  wisdom 
established  the  foundations  of  knowledge  in  the  hu- 
man  mind  so  that  twice  two  could  never  make  any- 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.          109 

thing  else  than  four.  So  soon  as  this  can  be  other- 
wise, our  faith  is  loosened  and  science  abolished. 
Three  may  be  one,  and  one  three." 

To  his  brother  William,  who  was  studying  the- 
ology at  Gbttingen,  he  writes  :  — 

"  September  12,  1824.  Why  talk  you  not  of 
my  studies,  —  how  and  what  I  should  do  ?  I  shall 
be  glad  of  any  useful  hints  from  the  paradise  of 
dictionaries  and  critics.  How  much  study  is  prac- 
ticable in  a  day  ?  Are  the  fables  of  literary  ro- 
mance about  thirteen,  fourteen,  fifteen  hours,  turned 
into  sober  earnest  ?  " 

To  William's  suggestion  that  he  should  come  to 
Gottingen,  he  replies  :  — 

"  If  you  think  it  every  way  advisable,  indispu- 
tably, absolutely  important,  that  I  should  do  as  you 
have  done  and  go  to  Gottingen,  —  and  you  can 
easily  decide,  —  why,  say  it  distinctly,  and  I  will 
make  the  sacrifice  of  time  and  take  the  risk  of  ex- 
pense immediately.  So  of  studying  German.  .  .  . 
Say  particularly  if  German  and  Hebrew  be  worth 
reading;  for,  though  I  hate  to  study  them,  cor- 
dially, I  yet  will,  the  moment  I  can  count  my  gains. 
Had  I  not  better  put  on  my  hat  and  take  ship  for 
the  Elbe?" 

But  on  reflection  he  felt  it  to  be  impracticable  : 

"  As  to  the  voyage  you  mention  for  me,  alas ! 
I  shall  come  to  fairy-land  as  soon.  Unless  I  could 
take  the  wings  of  the  morning  for  a  packet,  and 


HO  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

feed  on  wishes  instead  of  dollars,  and  be  clothed 
with  imagination  for  raiment,  I  must  not  expect  to 
go.     I  shall  be  glad  to  try  the  new  scene,  but  it 
might  not  do  me  any  good." 
To  the  same  :  — 

EOXBUEY,  January  18,  1825. 

I  have  cast  my  bread  on  the  waters,  locked  up 
my  school,  and  affect  the  scholar  at  home.  The 
truth  is,  we  think  we  have  got  to  the  Candlemas- 
day  of  our  winter,  and  that  we  may  be  bold  to 
borrow  the  second  half  of  our  wood  and  hay ;  as- 
suming that  the  spring  and  summer  of  lucrative 
exertion  is  nigh.  .  .  .  Ambitious  hopes  have  been 
engendered  by  the  real  or  supposed  increase  of 
value  of  the  old  property  on  Main  Street.  A  great 
hotel  has  been  builded  thereon,  whose  cost  it  is 
hoped  the  Carver  Street  land  will  pay,  and  there- 
after two  hundred  dollars  per  annum  should  come 
to  every  thirteenth,  with  a  reasonable  prospect  of 
more.  Moreover,  if  I  go  to  Cambridge  at  the  end 
of  the  present  vacation,  as  I  shall,  the  learned  and 
reverend  have  consented  to  admit  me  to  the  middle 
class. 

(Journal ; iJFebruary  8,  JL825.)  "  The  last  even- 
ing I  spend  in  Canterbury.  I  go  to  my  college 
chamber  to-morrow,  a  little  changed  for  better  or 
worse  since  I  left  it  in  1821.  I  have  learned  a 
few  more  names  and  dates ;  additional  facility  of 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.          Ill 

expression ;  the  gauge  of  my  own  ignorance,  its 
sounding-places  and  bottomless  depths.  I  have  in- 
verted my  inquiries  two  or  three  times  upon  my- 
self, and  have  learned  what  a  sinner  and  what  a 
saint  I  am.  My  cardinal  vice  of  intellectual  dissi- 
pation —  sinful  strolling  from  book  to  book,  from 
care  to  idleness  —  is  my  cardinal  vice  still;  is  a 
malady  that  belongs  to  the  chapter  of  incurables. 
I  have  written  two  or  three  hundred  pages  that 
will  be  of  use  to  me.  I  have  earned  two  or  three 
thousand  dollars,  which  have  paid  my  debts  and 
obligated  my  neighbors ;  so  that  I  thank  Heaven  I 
can  say,  none  of  my  house  is  the  worse  for  me." 

He_to^k^^p^m^jn_jDi^nity_JB[all  (No.J.4,on 
the  lower  floor,  the  northeastern  corner)  :  not  a 
very  desirable  lodging  in  that  somewhat  damp 
locality,  but  cheap.  A  month  afterwards  he  found 
himself  obliged,  by  ill-health,  and  particularly_Jby 
an  affection  of  the  eyes,  to  suspend  his  studies  and 
leave  Cambridge.  In  a  scrap  of  autobiography  he 
says:"—"" 

"  Being  out  of  health,  and  my  eyes  refusing  to 
read,  I  went  to  Newton,  to  my  uncle  Ladd's  farm, 
to  try  the  experiment  of  hard  work  for  the  benefit 
of  health.  There  were  a  couple  of  laborers  in  the 
field,  and  I  worked  as  well  as  I  could  with  them. 
One  of  these  men  was  a  Methodist,  and,  though 
ignorant  and  rude,  had  some  deep  thoughts.  He 
said  to  me  that  men  were  always  praying,  and  that 


112  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

all  prayers  were  granted.  I  meditated  much  on 
this  saying,  and  wrote  my  first  sermon  therefrom  ; 
of  which  the  divisions  were  :  (1)  Men  are  always 
praying ;  (2)  All  their  prayers  are  granted  ;  (3) 
We  must  beware,  then,  what  we  ask.  This  sermon 
I  preached  at  Waltham,  in  Mr.  Samuel  Ripley's 
pulpit,  OctoberJlS,  1826." 

In  the  course  of  the  summer  his  health  so  far 
improved  as  to  aHow  hinTto  take  one  or  favo  pu- 
pils, who  Eyed  with  him,  and  in  September  to  take 
charge  of  a  public  school  at  Chelnisford  for  a  feu- 
months.  In  January,  1826,  having  the  "joy  to 
'read  and  write  again,"  he  left  Chelmsford,  and 
took  his  brother  Edward's  school  at  Eoxbury,  — 
Edward  in  his  turn  being  compelled  by  persistent 
ill-health  to  give  up  his  law-studies  and  seek  relief 
in  a  voyage  to  the  Mediterranean.  His  mother, 
meantime,  had  moved  to  Cambridge  and  taken 
part  of  the  "  Mellen  House,"  still  standing,  I  be- 
lieve, on  North  Avenue,  near  Jarvis  Field.  He 
rejoined  her  here  in  April. 

TO   MISS   MABT   EMERSON. 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  6,  1826. 

MY  DEAB  AUNT,— Epicurus  said  to  his  fel- 
low-men, 'We  are  a  sufficient  spectacle  to  each 
other ; '  and  he  said  truly,  for  it  is  the  business  and 
pleasure  of  life  to  make  the  best  acquaintance  we 
ean  with  the  individuals  of  the  enormous  crowd  of 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.  113 

the  living  and  the  dead.  They  so  press  on  each 
other  in  the  innumerable  procession  that  't  is  but 
little  we  can  learn  distinctly  of  each.  .  .  .  But 
although  we  are  by  the  distance  necessarily  made 
strangers  to  infinite  numbers,  the  same  distance 
helps  us  to  group  them  together  and  to  trace  the 
general  direction  and  many  windings  of  the  march. 
And  who  are  the  guides  and  where  the  encamp- 
ments, whither  the  progress  and  when  the  period,  of 
this  tragic  journey  of  humanity  through  the  cham- 
paign of  the  world  ?  .  .  .  Let  us  draw  nearer  and 
make  the  most  of  our  vantage  to  satisfy  our  curiosity 
respecting  the  intents  and  condition  of  those  we  are 
favorably  situated  to  observe.  They  are  banded 
into  companies  at  the  outset  of  their  array  for  bet- 
ter defence  against  the  wolf  and  the  lion,  against 
famine  and  storm.  They  are  organized  under  gov- 
ernments for  the  convenience  and  protection  of  the 
individuals.  But  who  leads  the  leaders  and  in- 
structs the  instructor?  I  behold  along  the  line 
men  of  reverend  pretension,  who  have  waited  on 
mountains  or  slept  in  caverns  to  receive  from  un- 
seen intelligence  a  chart  of  the  unexplored  country, 
a  register  of  what  is  to  come.  But,  woe  is  me  !  as 
they  proceeded,  the  gods  of  the  nations  became  no 
gods ;  the  facts  belied  the  prophecies,  and  the  advanc- 
ing journey  betrayed  the  falsehood  of  their  guides. 
Goodness  was  not  found  with  the  servants  of  the 
Supremely  Good,  nor  wisdom  with  those  who  had 


114  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

seen  the  All -Wise.  But  still  on  they  went,  the 
stately  procession,  by  tribes  and  kindreds  and  na- 
tions, substituting  experience  of  the  past  for  knowl- 
edge of  the  future,  advancing  with  courageous 
heart  into  the  unexplored  wilderness,  though  with 
many  delays  and  many  retrograde  wanderings, 
whilst  many  a  day  of  beauty  lighted  their  march, 
and  many  a  halcyon  sign  of  hope  and  knowledge 
illuminated  the  future.  At  the  last  an  obscure 
man  in  an  obscure  crowd  brought  forward  a  new 
scripture  of  promise  and  instruction.  But  the  rich 
and  the  great  leaned  to  their  ancient  holdings,  and 
the  wise  distrusted  this  teacher,  for  they  had  been 
often  misled  before.  But  the  banner  inscribed 
with  his  Cross  has  been  erected,  and  it  has  been 
to  some  a  cloud  and  to  some  a  pillar  of  fire.  We 
too  have  taken  our  places  in  the  immeasurable 
train,  and  must  choose  our  standard  and  our  guide. 
Is  there  no  venerable  tradition  whose  genuineness 
and  authority  we  can  establish ;  or  must  we,  too, 
hurry  onward  inglorious  in  ignorance  and  misery, 
we  know  not  whence,  we  know  not  whither  ?  Per- 
haps you  are  tired  of  my  metaphor,  but  I  write  to 
get  answers,  not  to  please  myself,  and  cannot  tell 
how  much  I  was  disappointed  to  find  my  long-ex- 
pected letter  nothing  but  an  envelope.  My  eyes 
are  well,  comparatively ;  my  limbs  are  diseased 
with  rheumatism.  Edward  writes  that  he  mends 
daily.  Your  affectionate  nephew, 

K.  WALDO  E. 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.         115 

Why  so  anxious  about  Charles  ?  He  stands,  we 
suppose,  first  in  his  class ;  he  loves  letters,  he  loves 
goodness.  But  goodness  is  an  abstraction,  and  we 
cannot  always  be  good-humored,  even  though  we  love 
to  madness.  He  will  be  eloquent,  and  will  write, 
but  comes  not  up  to  the  force  and  nobleness  of  the 
transatlantic  boy,  —  certainly  not  to  my  cherished 
image  of  the  same. 

Soon  afterwards  they  shifted  their  quarters  to 
"  Dr.  [Levi]  Hedge's  house  on  the  Old  Common," 
now  Winthrop  Square,  where  he  could  have  a 
school-room.  He  opened  a  school  here  which  he 
kept  through  the  summer,  and  then  brought  his 
school-keeping  to  a  close. 

His  pupils'  recollections  of  him  as  a  school-master 
dwell  chiefly  upon  his  moral  infli\Qnggj_hjs  bftrvign, 
encouraging  demeanor,  his  horror  at  any  coarse- 
ness, and  his  interest  in  their  lives  outside  of  the 
school-room.  He  gave  them  a  holiday  on  the  occa- 
sion of  Webster's  address  at  Bunker's  Hill,  and 
was  much  disappointed  at  finding  the  next  day 
that  none  of  them  went  to  hear  it.  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  Jr.,  was  one  of  his  scholars.  Afterwards, 
when  "Two  Years  before  the  Mast"  appeared, 
Emerson  wrote  to  his  brother  William :  "  Have 
you  seen  young  Dana's  book  ?  Good  as  '  Robinson 
Crusoe,'  and  all  true.  He  was  my  scholar  once, 
but  he  never  learned  this  of  me,  more 's  the  pity." 


116  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

The  weary  days  of  school-keeping  were  over,  but 
he  was  not  able  to  turn  at  once  to  his  own  pursuits ; 
he  was  afflicted  with  rheumatism,  and  there  were 
symptoms  of  lung-disease.  His  professional  stu- 
dies, it  is  obvious,  with  all  these  interruptions,  could 
not  have  been  very  serious.  He  had  been  allowed, 
during  the  ten  or  twelve  months  he  spent  at  Cam- 
bridge, to  attend  the  lectures  of  the  class  he  had 
expected  to  join,  though  without  undertaking  the 
regular  work,  and  he  looked  forward  in  a  general 
way  to  entering  the  ministry  at  the  same  time  with 
them,  though  he  felt  himself  at  present  in  no  con- 
dition for  undertaking  the  active  exercise  of  it. 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  1,  1826. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT,  —  Neither  my  silence  nor  my 
volubility  succeeds  in  extracting  the  old-fashioned 
long  letters  I  am  writing  after.  Tis  said  the 
weaker  party  is  ever  the  recommender  of  moder- 
ation ; 1  in  like  manner  the  poor  in  spirit  will  be 
strenuous  to  enforce  the  duty  of  imparting  out  of 
their  affluence  on  their  patrons.  None  feels  his 
poverty  so  sordidly  as  he  who  contemplates  prodi- 
gious expenses,  and  I  am  already  turning  my  little 
pennyworth  to  account  in  the  preparation  of  ser- 
mons. In  the  fall  I  propose  to  be  approbated,  to 
have  the  privilege,  though  not  at  present  the  pur- 
pose, of  preaching,  but  at  intervals.  I  do  not  now 
1  Hume. 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.          117 

find  in  me  any  objections  to  this  step.  'T  is  a  queer 
life,  and  the  only  humor  proper  to  it  seems  quiet 
astonishment.  Others  laugh,  weep,  sell,  or  prose- 
lyte ;  I  admire.  There  are,  I  take  it,  in  each 
man's  history,  insignificant  passages  which  he  feels 
to  be  to  him  not  insignificant ;  little  coincidences  in 
little  things,  which  touch  all  the  springs  of  wonder 
and  startle  the  sleeper  conscience  in  the  deepest 
cell ;  the  mind  standing  forth  in  alarm  with  all  her 
faculties,  suspicious  of  a  Presence  which  it  behoves 
her  deeply  to  respect,  —  touched  not  more  with  awe 
than  with  curiosity,  if  perhaps  some  secret  revela- 
tion is  not  about  to  be  vouchsafed,  or  doubtful  if 
some  moral  epoch  is  not  just  now  fulfilled  in  its  his- 
tory, and  the  tocsin  just  now  struck  that  severs  and 
tolls  out  an  irreparable  past.  These  are  not  the 
state  reasons  by  which  we  can  enforce  the  burden- 
some doctrine  of  a  Deity  on  the  world,  but  make 
often,  I  apprehend,  the  body  of  evidence  on  which 
private  conviction  is  built.  .  .  .  Human  nature  will 
go  daft  in  our  times,  like  the  Grecian  father  who 
embraced  two  Olympian  victors  in  one  day.  To- 
morrow, Everett  is  to  open  his  lips  on  this  signal 
topic,1  and  Webster  the  next  day.  ...  In  the  wind 
of  these  great  events  I  am  to  assume  my  office,  the 
meek  ambassador  of  the  Highest.  Can  you  not 
suggest  the  secret  oracles  which  such  a  commission 
needs,  the  lofty  truths  that  are  keys  and  indexes  to 

1  The  deaths  of  John  Adams  and  of  Jefferson  on  the  fourth  of 
July  of  this  year. 


118  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

all  other  truth  and  to  all  action  on  society  ?  Can 
you  not  awaken  a  sympathetic  activity  in  torpid 
faculties  ?  Whatever  Heaven  has  given  me  or  with- 
held, my  feelings  or  the  expression  of  them  is  very 
cold,  my  understanding  and  my  tongue  slow  and 
unaffecting.  It  may  be  each  excitement  adminis- 
tered from  within  may  impel  a  swifter  circulation 
in  the  outer  channels  of  manner  and  power.  The 
letters  I  get  from  the  Vale  serve  this  purpose  bet- 
ter than  any  other  compositions,  so  I  beseech  you 
to  forgive  the  importunity  of  your  nephew. 

WALDO. 

Emerson  said  afterwards  that  if  the  authorities 
had  examined  him  upon  his  studies  they  would 
have  refused  him  the  license  to  preach. 

In  his  case,  however,  there  would  be  no  harm 
in  assuming  the  needful  preparation  for  the  min- 
istry, and  he  was  "  approbated  to  preach "  by  the 
Middlesex  Association  of  Ministers,  October  10, 
1826,  and  preached  his  first  public  sermon  five 
days  afterwards  at  Waltham. 

He  continued  to  make  notes  "for  sermons  by 
and  by,  if  I  prosper  better  than  I  at  this  present 
apprehend,"  but  he  hardly  expected  to  have  occa- 
sion to  use  them.  He  could  take  no  exercise,  and 
his  eyesight  and  his  general  health  grew  worse. 

(Journal :  September,  1826.)  "  Health,  action, 
happiness,  —  how  they  ebb  from  me  I  Poor  Sisy- 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  MINISTRY.          119 

phus  saw  his  stone  stop  once,  at  least,  when  Or- 
pheus chanted.  I  must  roll  urine  up  and  up  and  up 
how  high  a  hill." 

In  the  midst  of  these  sad  reflections  the  thought 
of  Edward  returning  from  Europe  with  renewed 
health  came  in  to  revive  him. 

"  But  hark,  I  can  hear  on  the  eastern  wind  al- 
most the  harp  of  my  coming  Orpheus.  He  sets  his 
sail  and  flies  over  the  grim  flood.  Breathe  soft  the 
winds,  and  shine  warmly  on  him  the  autumnal  sun ! 
It  may  be  a  contrary  destiny  will  be  too  strong  on 
me  for  the  help  of  his  hand.  But  speed  his  bark, 
for  his  heart  is  noble  and  his  hand  is  strong,  and 
the  good  of  others  is  given  into  his  hand.  It  would 
give  me  great  pleasure  to  be  well.  It  is  mourn- 
ful, the  expectation  of  ceasing  to  be  an  object  of 
hope  that  we  may  become  objects  of  compassion, 
and  then  go  gloomily  to  nothing,  in  the  eye  of 
this  world,  before  we  have  had  one  opportunity 
of  turning  to  the  sun  what  we  know  is  our  best 
side." 

He  had  but  little  opportunity  to  enjoy  the  com- 
panionship of  his  beloved  brother,  his  one  intimate ; 
for,  as  the  cold  weather  came  on,  his  friends, 
and  particularly  his  uncle  Samuel  Ripley,  insisted 
that  he  must  go  to  the  South  for  the  winter. 
He  sailed  in  the  ship  Clematis  for  Charleston, 
S.  C.,  on  the  25th  of  November,  a  few  weeks 


120  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

after  Edward's  return,  and  arrived  "  after  twelve 
weary  days,"  to  pass  days  as  weary  on  land, 
until  the  increasing  cold  drove  him  yet  farther 
south. 

TO  WILLIAM   EMERSON,   ESQ.,  NEW   YORK. 

CHARLESTON,  S.  C.,  January  6,  1827. 

DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  The  cold  has  been  so  con- 
siderable as  to  deprive  me  of  any  signal  benefit 
from  the  change  of  climate.  Indeed,  I  am  scared 
out,  and  't  is  more  than  probable  that  I  shall  take 
passage  for  St.  Augustine,  in  the  sloop  William, 
next  Tuesday  or  Wednesday.  I  am  not  sick,  but 
luke-sick.  I  have  but  a  single  complaint,  a  certain 
stricture  on  the  right  side  of  the  chest,  which  al- 
ways makes  itself  felt  when  the  air  is  cold  or  damp ; 
and  the  attempt  to  preach,  or  the  like  exertion  of 
the  lungs,  is  followed  by  an  aching.  The  worst 
part  of  it  is  the  deferring  of  hopes,  and  who  can 
help  being  heart-sick  ?  Moreover,  it  makes  me  de- 
pendent, inasmuch  as  my  excellent  friend  in  Wal- 
tham  undertakes  to  supply  me  with  funds,  with- 
out appointing  the  pay-day.  ...  I  scribble  in  my 
blue-books,  but  have  not  succeeded  in  overcoming 
certain  physical  or  metaphysical  difficulties  suffi- 
ciently to  accomplish  anything  in  the  way  of  grave 
composition,  as  I  had  hoped.  .  .  . 


TRIP  TO  THE  SOUTH.  121 

ST.  AUGUSTINE,  E.  FLORIDA,  January  29,  1827. 
DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  In  about  a  week  the  sloop 
William  will  arrive  here,  which  is  to  us  what  the 
Spanish  galleon  is  to  Manilla.  It  brings,  at  every 
trip  to  St.  Augustine,  inhabitants,  victuals,  news- 
papers, and  letters.  It  is  one  of  two  sloops  which 
make  all  the  shipping  of  this  port ;  its  regular  ar- 
rival and  departure  are  the  only  events  that  agitate 
our  provincial  circles.  If  a  cross-wind  detain  Cap- 
tain Swasey,  not  only  our  news  gets  old,  but  our 
barrel  of  meal  gets  empty,  and  the  lean  kine  begin 
to  cast  significant  glances  on  the  fat.  I  believe 
myself  to  be  a  great  deal  better  than  I  was  when  I 
came.  The  air  and  sky  of  this  ancient,  fortified, 
dilapidated  sand-bank  of  a  town  are  really  delicious. 
I  am  very  decidedly  relieved  from  my  stricture, 
which  seems  to  hold  its  tenure  from  Boreas.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  queer  place.  There  are  eleven  or  twelve 
hundred  people,  and  these  are  invalids,  public  offi- 
cers, and  Spaniards,  or  rather  Minorcans.  What 
is  done  here  ?  Nothing.  It  was  reported  in  the 
morning  that  a  man  was  at  work  in  the  public 
square,  and  all  our  family  turned  out  to  see  him. 
What  is  grown  here  ?  Oranges,  on  which  no  culti- 
vation seems  to  be  bestowed,  beyond  the  sluggish 
attention  of  one  or  two  negroes  to  each  grove  of 
five  or  six  hundred  trees.  The  Americans  live  on 
their  offices ;  the  Spaniards  keep  billiard  tables,  or, 


122  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

if  not,  they  send  their  negroes  to  the  mud  to  bring 
oysters,  or  to  the  shore  to  bring  fish,  and  the  rest 
of  the  time  fiddle,  mask,  and  dance.  The  Cath- 
olic clergyman  lately  represented  at  a  masquerade 
the  character  of  a  drunken  sailor,  with  laughable 
fidelity.  I  stroll  on  the  sea-beach  and  drive  a 
green  orange  over  the  sand  with  a  stick.  Some- 
times I  sail  in  a  boat,  sometimes  I  sit  in  a  chair. 
I  read  and  write  a  little,  moulding  sermons  for  an 
hour  which  may  never  arrive.  For  though  there 
may  be  much  preaching  in  the  world  to  come,  yet, 
as  it  will  hardly  be  after  the  written  fashion  of  this 
pragmatic  world,  if  I  go  to  the  grave  without  find- 
ing vent  for  my  gift,  the  universe,  I  fear,  will  afford 
it  no  scope  beside. 

January  27,  1827. 

DEAK  CHARLES,  —  In  these  remote  outskirts  of 
civilization,  the  idea  of  home  grows  vivid,  and 
grave  men  like  jne  are  sometimes  pestered  with  a 
curiosity  very  becoming,  doubtless,  and  very  keen, 
to  know  what  is  done  and  said  by  certain  beardless 
aspirants  who  are  giving  their  days  to  philosophy 
and  virtue.  Whosoever  is  in  St.  Augustine  re- 
sembles what  may  be  also  seen  in  St.  Augustine,  — 
the  barnacles  on  a  ledge  of  rocks  which  the  tide 
has  deserted :  move  they  cannot ;  very  uncomfort- 
able they  surely  are  ;  but  they  can  hear  from  afar 
the  roaring  of  the  waters,  and  imagine  the  joy  of 
the  barnacles  that  are  bathed  thereby.  The  enter- 


TRIP  TO   THE  SOUTH.  123 

tainments  of  the  place  are  two,  billiards  and  the 
sea-beach,  but  those  whose  cloth  abhors  the  bil- 
liards, —  why,  theirs  is  the  sea-beach.  Here,  there- 
fore, day  by  day  do  I  parade,  and  think  of  my 
brother  barnacles  at  a  distance.  Thus  you  see  the 
poorest  of  us  hath  his  ideal.  A  small  gray-coated 
gnat  is  wagoner  to  the  queen  of  faeries,  and  we 
who  walk  on  the  beach  are  seers  of  prodigious 
events  and  prophets  of  noble  natures.  Let  us 
make  the  ordinary  claims  of  our  class  It  is  not  in 
us,  it  is  not  in  us ;  we  are  but  pipes  on  which  an* 
other  finger  plays  what  stop  it  pleases. 

He  passed  the  winter  at  St.  Augustine ;  getting 
what  solace  he  might  from  the  mild  climate,  the 
Old  World  look  of  the  place  and  of  the  inhabitants, 
and  the  traces  of  a  romantic  past.  The  people,  he 
says,  in  his  journal,  are  "  very  much  afraid  of  the 
Indians.  All  the  old  houses  have  very  strong 
walls,  and  doors  with  apertures  through  which  a 
musket  can  be  discharged.  They  are  delighted  to 
find  that  under  the  American  flag  the  Indians  are 
afraid  of  the  whites.  Some  of  them,  however,  do 
not  like  to  venture  far  out  of  the  town  at  this  day. 
'  But  what  are  you  afraid  of  ?  Don't  you  know 
General  Jackson  conquered  all  the  Indians  ? ' 
4 Yes,  but  General  Jackens  no  here  now.'  'But 
his  son  is : '  for  you  know  the  Indians  call  Colonel 
Gadsden  his  son.  '  Ay,  ay,  but  then  the  Indians, 


124  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

for  all  that.'  I  saw  by  the  city  gates  two  iron 
frames  in  the  shape  of  a  mummy,  with  rings  on 
the  head.  They  were  cases  in  which 
the  Spanish  governor  had  hung  crim- 
inals upon  a  gibbet.  There  is  a  little 
iron  loop  on  one  side  by  the  breast,  in 
\  which  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  vessel  of 
water  were  contained.  Thus  provided,  the  wretch 
was  hung  up,  by  suspending  the  ring  over  his  head 
to  a  tree,  and  left  to  starve  to  death.  They  were 
lately  dug  up,  full  of  bones.1  The  worthy  father  of 
the  Catholic  church  here,  by  whose  conversation 
I  was  not  a  little  scandalized,  has  lately  been  ar- 
rested for  debt  and  confined  in  St.  Mark's.  I 
went  yesterday  to  the  cathedral,  full  of  great  coarse 
toys,  and  heard  this  priest  say  mass ;  for  his  cred- 
itors have  been  indulgent,  and  released  him  for  the 
present.  A  fortnight  since  I  attended  a  meeting 
of  the  Bible  Society.  The  treasurer  of  this  institu- 
tion is  marshal  of  the  district,  and,  by  a  somewhat 
unfortunate  arrangement,  had  appointed  a  special 
meeting  of  the  society  and  a  slave-auction  at  the 
same  time  and  place,  one  being  in  the  Government 
House,  and  the  other  in  the  adjoining  yard.  One 
ear,  therefore,  heard  the  glad  tidings  of  great  joy, 
whilst  the  other  was  regaled  with,  '  Going,  gentle- 
men, going ! '  and  almost  without  changing  our 

1  In  the  margin  Emerson  gives  a  sketch,  which  is  here  repro- 
duced. 


TRIP   TO   THE  SOUTH.  125 

position  we  might  aid  in  sending  the  Scriptures 
into  Africa,  or  bidding  on  '  four  children  without 
the  mother,'  who  had  been  kidnapped  therefrom. 
There  is  something  wonderfully  piquant  in  the 
manners  of  the  place,  theological  or  civil.  A  Mr. 
Jerry,  a  Methodist  minister,  preached  here  two 
Sundays  ago,  who  confined  himself  in  the  after- 
noon to  some  pretty  intelligible  strictures  upon  the 
character  of  a  president  of  the  Bible  Society,  who 
swears.  The  gentleman  alluded  to  was  present, 
and  it  really  exceeded  all  power  of  face  to  be  grave 
during  the  divine's  very  plain  analysis  of  the  mo- 
tives which  probably  actuated  the  individual  in 
seeking  the  office  which  he  holds.  It  fairly  beat 
the  Quousque  Catilina." 

At  St.  Augustine  his  note-books  contain  a  good 
deal  of  verse,  descriptive  of  the  place,  and  of  him- 
self as  an  exile  from  his  home  and  one  who  did  not 
love  the  look  of  foreign  men  ;  also  prose  reflections 
on  his  profession  and  on  "the  hour  which  must 
arrive,  in  the  progress  of  society,  when  disputed 
truths  in  theology  will  cease  to  demand  the  whole 
life  and  genius  of  ministers  in  their  elucidation. 
Then  the  champions  of  the  Cross  will  be  able  to 
turn  from  this  ungrateful  task,  in  which  ages  have 
so  unprofitably  elapsed,  of  stripping  off  the  mani- 
fold coats  under  which  prejudice  and  falsehood  had 
concealed  the  truth,  and  come  at  last  to  the  dear 
and  lofty  employment  of  pointing  out  the  secret 
but  affecting  passages  in  the  history  of  the  soul." 


126  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Here  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  man  who, 
although  he  was  a  Frenchman,  a  man  of  the  world, 
and  an  open  unbeliever  in  religion,  impressed  the 
young  New  England  minister,  who  thought  he  did 
not  love  foreign  faces,  as  few  persons  ever  impressed 
him,  and  long  remained  in  his  memory  as  "  a  type 
of  heroic  manners  and  sweet-tempered  ability." 
This  was  Achille  Murat,  son  of  Bonaparte's  king 
of  Naples,  but  domiciled  here  and  married  to  an 
American  woman.  He  had  a  plantation  at  Talla- 
hassee, whither  Emerson  seems  to  have  accom- 
panied him  on  a  visit,  sleeping  three  nights  under 
the  pine-trees  on  the  way ;  though  it  is  not  quite 
clear  that  he  is  speaking  of  himself.  At  all  events 
they  made  the  voyage  to  Charleston  together,  when 
Emerson  returned  northward  on  the  approach  of 
warm  weather.  He  writes  to  his  brother  William : 

CHARLESTON,  April  7,  1827. 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  —  I  arrived  here  yesterday 
after  a  direful  passage  of  nine  days  from  St.  Au- 
gustine. The  ordinary  one  is  one  or  two  days.  We 
were  becalmed,  tempest-tossed,  and  at  last  well-nigh 
starved,  but  the  beloved  brother  bore  it  not  only 
with  equanimity,  but  pleasure,  for  my  kind  genius 
had  sent  me  for  my  shipmate  Achille  Murat,  the 
eldest  son  of  the  old  King  Joachim.  He  is  now  a 
planter  at  Tallahassee,  and  at  this  time  on  his  way 
to  visit  his  uncle  at  Bordentown.  He  is  a  philoso- 


TRIP  TO  THE  SOUTH.  127 

pher,  a  scholar,  a  man  of  the  world ;  very  scepti- 
cal but  very  candid,  and  an  ardent  lover  of  truth. 
I  blessed  my  stars  for  my  fine  companion,  and 
we  talked  incessantly.  Much  more  of  him  when  I 
shall  see  you.  ...  As  to  health,  I  gain  courage. 
I  feel  that  my  success  depends  upon  it,  —  mine 
more  than  many  others,  and  am  therefore  sensitive 
on  the  subject.  I  weigh  152  pounds  [a  gain  of  ten 
pounds  during  the  winter]  ;  to  increase  this  weight 
I  study  very  little,  or,  as  Wamba  might  say,  I  study 
very  much  to  increase  my  weight  by  studying  very 
little ;  and,  in  journeying  with  this  intent,  I  have 
not  written  a  sermon  since  I  left  home.  As  to 
your  wishes  for  my  settlement,  avaunt  New  York! 
1  am  a  bigoted  Yankee  and  your  affectionate 
brother,  WALDO  E. 

TO   MISS   MARY   EMERSON. 

CHARLESTON,  April  10,  1827. 

I  fancy  myself  wiser  for  my  excursion.  To  be 
sure,  one  need  not  stir  from  the  chimney-corner  for 
that.  It  is  very  pleasant  to  retire  to  my  shell  and 
salute  the  comers,  as  they  pass  in  procession,  with 
a  very  majestic  indifference  ;  much  as  I  would  be- 
hold so  many  ingenious  puppets  which  another 
hand  is  guiding.  Nevertheless,  I  shall  not  deny 
that  there  are  some  who  take  such  a  strong  hold  of 
my  attention  that  I  am  fain  to  quit  my  stoic  fur, 
and  fairly  go  out  of  my  circle  to  shake  hands  and 


128  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

converse  with  them.  Now  I  know  my  kind  aunt, 
with  her  electrical  imagination,  will  think  I  am 
talking  of  women.  Alack-a-day,  with  all  the  chi- 
valry that  is  in  my  soul,  backed  by  all  the  Muses, 
I  pass  in  cold  selfishness  from  Maine  to  Florida, 
and  tremble  lest  I  be  destined  for  a  monk.  No, 
I  was  speaking  of  men,  and  another  time  I  will 
give  you  an  account  of  one  whom  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  meet  in  East  Florida  ;  a  man  of  splendid 
birth  and  proud  accomplishments,  but  a  humble 
disciple  in  the  school  of  truth. 

ALEXANDRIA,  D.  C.,  Nay  15,  1827. 
Mr  DEAK  AUNT,  —  I  am  waiting  here  in  pleasant 
durance  until  the  sun  will  let  me  go  home.  For 
I  am  too  delicate  a  body  to  brave  the  northeast 
winds  with  impunity.  If  I  told  you  I  had  got  well, 
I  believe  I  deceived  you  and  myself.  For  I  am 
not  sure  I  am  a  jot  better  or  worse  than  when 
I  left  home  in  November ;  only  in  this,  that  I 
preached  Sunday  morning  in  Washington  without 
any  pain  or  inconvenience.  I  am  still  saddled  with 
the  villain  stricture,  and  perhaps  he  will  ride  me 
to  death.  I  have  not  lost  my  courage,  or  the  pos- 
session of  my  thoughts.  ...  It  occurs  to  me  lately 
that  we  have  a  great  many  capacities  which  we 
lack  time  and  occasion  to  improve.  If  I  read  the 
"  Bride  of  Lammermoor,"  a  thousand  imperfect 
suggestions  arise  in  my  mind,  to  which  if  I  could 


TRIP  TO  THE  SOUTH.  129 

give  heed,  I  should  be  a  novelist.  When  I  chance 
to  light  upon  a  verse  of  genuine  poetry,  —  it  may 
be  in  a  corner  of  a  newspaper,  —  a  forcible  sympa- 
thy awakens  a  legion  of  little  goblins  in  the  re- 
cesses of  the  soul,  and  if  I  had  leisure  to  attend  to 
the  fine,  tiny  rabble  I  should  straightway  be  a  poet. 
In  my  day-dreams  I  do  often  hunger  and  thirst  to 
be  a  painter  ;  besides  all  the  spasmodic  attach- 
ments I  indulge  to  each  of  the  sciences  and  each 
province  of  letters.  They  all  in  turn  play  the  co- 
quette with  my  imagination,  and  it  may  be  I  shall 
die  at  the  last  a  forlorn  bachelor,  jilted  of  them  all. 
But  all  that  makes  these  reveries  noticeable  is  the 
indirect  testimony  they  seem  to  bear  to  the  most 
desirable  attributes  of  human  nature.  If  it  has  so 
many  conatus  (seekings  after),  as  the  philosophic 
term  is,  they  are  not  in  vain,  but  point  to  a  dura- 
tion ample  enough  for  the  entire  satisfaction  of 
them  all.  .  .  .  On  a  sick-bed  the  name  of  Shake- 
speare will  induce  a  feeling  of  vigor  and,  I  may  say, 
of  longevity,  which  is  all  independent  of  the  decay 
of  the  body.  ...  I  know  there  are  some  intelli- 
gences that  see  far  into  the  structure  of  these  our 
mortal  entertainments,  and  hazard  shrewd  guesses 
at  the  principle  of  the  arts,  of  manners,  and  can 
show  the  cause  why  now  the  balm  works,  and  why 
now  no  spirit  broods  upon  the  face  of  the  darkling 
waters.  Will  you  not  please  to  disclose  some  of 
these  lights  to  your  poor  blinded  but  very  affec- 
tionate nephew,  WALDO. 


130  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

I  have  been  staying  some  time  in  the  very  hospi- 
table house  of  Mr.  Lacld,  and  design  to  set  out  this 
week  for  Philadelphia,  and,  after  some  delay  there 
and  at  New  York,  for  home.  William  has  been 
delivering  some  lectures  on  German  literature  with 
honor  to  himself  at  New  York. 

June,  1827.  Although  I  strive  to  keep  my 
soul  in  a  polite  equilibrium,  I  belong  to  the  good 
sect  of  the  Seekers,  and  conceive  that  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  body  will  have  a  wonderful  effect  on 
the  opinions  of  all  creed-mongers.  How  the  flimsy 
sophistries  that  have  covered  nations  —  unclean 
cobwebs  that  have  reached  their  long  dangling 
threads  over  whole  ages,  issuing  from  the  dark 
bowels  of  Athanasius  and  Calvin  —  will  shrink  to 
nothing  at  that  sun -burst  of  truth  !  And  nobody 
will  be  more  glad  than  Athanasius  and  Calvin. 
In  my  frigidest  moments,  when  I  put  behind  me 
the  subtler  evidences,  and  set  Christianity  in  the 
light  of  a  piece  of  human  history,  —  much  as  Con- 
fucius or  Solyman  might  regard  it,  —  I  believe  my- 
self immortal.  The  beam  of  the  balance  trembles, 
to  be  sure,  but  settles  always  on  the  right  side. 
For  otherwise  all  things  look  so  silly.  The  sun  is 
silly,  and  the  connection  of  beings  and  worlds  such 
mad  nonsense.  I  say  this,  I  say  that  in  pure  rea- 
son I  believe  my  immortality,  because  I  have  read 
and  heard  often  that  the  doctrine  hangs  wholly  on 
Christianity.  This,  to  be  sure,  brings  safety,  but  I 
think  I  get  bare  life  without. 


RETURN  HOME.  131 

He  reached  home  in  June,  and  joined  his  mother 
at  the  Concord  Manse  (whither  she  had  removed, 
by  Dr.  Ripley's  invitation,  when  the  Cambridge 
household  was  broken  up),  but  soon  afterwards  es- 
tablished himself  again  at  Divinity  Hall.  He  had 
preached  (old  sermons)  at  St.  Augustine,  Charles- 
ton, Washington,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York,  at 
all  which  places,  except  the  first,  Unitarian  churches 
were  already  founded. 

On  his  way  home  he  heard  from  his  brother 
Edward  that  he  would  be  wanted  at  the  First 
Church  in  Boston  during  a  temporary  absence  of 
the  minister,  Mr.  Frothingham.  Upon  his  return 
he  preached  there  for  some  weeks,  and  afterwards 
at  Northampton  and  at  New  Bedford.  But  he 
found  that  his  health  was  not  sufficiently  confirmed 
for  regular  work.  He  writes  to  William  :  — 

BOSTON,  June  24,  1827. 

I  am  all  clay ;  no  iron.  I  meditate,  now  and 
then,  total  abdication  of  the  profession,  on  the  score 
of  ill  health.  It  is  now  the  evening  of  the  second 
Sunday  that  I  have  officiated  all  day  at  Chauncy 
Place.  Told  them  this  day  I  won't  preach  next 
Sunday,  on  that  account.  Very  sorry,  —  for  how  to 
get  my  bread?  Shall  I  commence  author?  Of 
prose  or  of  verse  ?  Alack,  of  both  the  unwilling 
Muse.  Yet  am  I  no  whit  the  worse  in  appearance, 
I  believe,  than  when  in  New  York,  but  the  lungs 


132  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

in  their  spiteful  lobes  sing  sexton  and  sorrow  when- 
ever I  only  ask  them  to  shout  a  sermon  for  me. 
I  have  taken  a  room  in  Divinity  Hall  [Cambridge], 
and  perhaps  shall  live  there  a  little. 

TO    MISS   MARY    EMERSON. 

.  CONCORD,  August  17,  1827. 

MY  DEAR  AUOT,  —  I  sent  Hume's  Essays  to 
Boston,  to  go  by  Robert,  but  they  were  neglected 
and  not  sent.  I  can  lend  them  for  three  months 
from  the  time  you  get  them,  and  will  send  them 
when  an  opportunity  occurs.  Baillie's  Plays  not 
easily  procured.  What  do  you  want  them  for? 
Only  as  I  do  in  my  slovenly  way  of  thinking,  for 
a  kind  of  better  word-hunting,  that  a  phrase  which 
catches  the  eye  may  be  tortured  in  the  mind  till  it 
chances  to  suggest  a  new  thought  or  an  old  one 
with  a  new  face  ?  I  cannot,  be  sure,  bring  you 
down  to  my  level,  without  great  ignorance  and  dis- 
courtesy, but  I  wondered  what  you  want  Miss  B. 
for.  The  instructor  in  a  school  is  pleased  to  see 
the  children  play  tricks  with  figures  on  a  slate,  and 
is  glad  if  they  are  learning  arithmetic  by  puzzles 
and  in  sport ;  and  our  governor  consents  that  the 
apparent  object  of  our  intellectual  existence  on 
earth,  the  learning  of  language,  should  be  accom- 
plished by  calculation  or  by  fancy.  Anyhow,  there 
is  a  person,  of  very  insignificant  pretensions  as- 
suredly, but  who  believes  he  has  sometimes  owed 


RETURN  HOME.  133 

the  best  of  his  poor  thoughts  to  this  unhonorable 
expedient  of  bringing  verses  and  phrases  to  the 
rack.  The  profit  is  much  as  the  hangman's,  who, 
doing  his  office  skilfully,  sometimes  stands  legatee 
to  the  very  respectable  sufferer.  I  would  not 
trouble  you  with  what  I  know  you  consider  degrad- 
ing particulars,  but  that  they  may  go  farther  than 
more  showy  facts  to  teach  what  stuff  we  are  made 
of.  ... 

I  preach  half  of  every  Sunday.  When  I  at- 
tended church  on  the  other  half  of  a  Sunday, 
and  the  image  in  the  pulpit  was  all  of  clay,  and  not 
of  tunable  metal,  I  said  to  myself  that  if  men 
would  avoid  that  general  language  and  general 
manner  in  which  they  strive  to-,hide  all  that  is 
peculiar,  and  would  say  only  what  was  uppermost 
in  their  own  minds,  after  their  own  individual  man- 
ner, every  man  would  be  interesting.  Every  man 
is  a  new  creation,  can  do  something  best,  has  some 
intellectual  modes  and  forms,  or  a  character  the 
general  result  of  all,  such  as  no  other  agent  in  the 
universe  has :  if  he  would  exhibit  that,  it  must 
needs  be  engaging,  must  be  a  curious  study  to 
every  inquisitive  mind.  But  whatever  properties 
a  man  of  narrow  intellect  feels  to  be  peculiar  he 
studiously  hides ;  he  is  ashamed  or  afraid  of  himself, 
and  all  his  communications  to  men  are  unskilful 
plagiarisms  from  the  common  stock  of  thought  and 
knowledge,  and  he  is  of  course  flat  and  tiresome. 


134  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

...  To  ask  questions  is  what  this  life  is  for ;  to 
answer  them,  the  next,  and  those  intermediate  peo- 
ple who,  like  my  correspondent,  seem  to  partake  of 
both.  My  eyes  are  not  so  strong  as  to  let  me  be 
learned.  I  am  curious  to  know  what  the  Scrip- 
tures do  in  very  deed  say  about  that  exalted  per- 
son who  died  on  Calvary,  but  I  do  think  it,  at  this 
distance  of  time  and  in  the  confusion  of  language, 
to  be  a  work  of  weighing  of  phrases  and  hunting 
in  dictionaries.  A  portion  of  truth,  bright  and 
sublime,  lives  in  every  moment  to  every  man.  It 
is  enough  for  safety,  though  not  for  education.  .  .  . 
Yours  affectionately,  WALDO. 

TO   WILLIAM. 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  31,  1827. 

I  am  going  to  preach  at  Northampton  for  Mr. 
Hall,  a  few  weeks.  His  church  is  a  small  one,  and 
I  shall  be  able  to  preach  all  day,  I  suppose,  with- 
out inconvenience.  ...  I  aspire  always  to  the  pro- 
duction of  present  effect,  thinking  that  if  I  succeed 
in  that  I  succeed  wholly.  In  a  strong  present 
effect  is  a  permanent  impression.  ...  I  am  not  so 
well  but  that  the  cold  may  make  another  Southern 
winter  expedient. 

December  14,  1827.  I  am  living  in  Divinity 
Hall,  to  my  great  satisfaction,  as  refined,  as  easy, 
and  as  idle  as  a  lord.  My  health  quite  the  same 
stupid  riddle  it  has  been. 


RETURN  HOME.  135 

February  8,  1828.  I  am  writing  sermons.  I 
am  living  cautiously;  yea,  treading  on  eggs,  to 
strengthen  my  constitution.  It  is  a  long  battle,  this 
of  mine  betwixt  life  and  death,  and  it  is  wholly  un- 
certain to  whom  the  game  belongs.  So  I  never 
write  when  I  can  walk,  and  especially  when  I  can 
laugh.  But  my  companions  are  few,  and  so  some- 
times I  must  read.  Have  you  read  that  contemp- 
tuous chapter  of  Kousseau's  "Emile,"  upon  the 
slavery  of  the  sick?  Charles  comes  down  to  me 
occasionally ;  he  is  still  the  same  honey-catcher  of 
pleasure,  favor,  and  honor  that  he  hath  been,  and 
without  paying  for  it,  like  Edward,  with  life  and 
limb.  He  reads  Plato  and  Aristophanes  in  Greek, 
and  writes,  as  the  president  said  of  the  brood,  like 
hoary  hairs.  Edward  looks  so  well  in  spite  of 
those  unutterable  diseases  of  which  he  talks,  that 
I  think  his  chance  is  good  to  last  long,  quite  as 
good  as  mine. 

April  3,  1828.  I  am  just  returned  from  preach- 
ing all  (Fast)  day  at  Lexington,  where  I  fill  the 
pulpit  till  the  return  of  Mr.  Briggs.  Perhaps  Ed- 
ward told  you  I  was  agreeably  disappointed  (for 
so  it  was)  in  escaping  all  engagements  at  the  new 
[Hollis  Street]  church  in  Boston.1  I  am  embar- 
rassed at  present,  whenever  any  application  is  made 
to  me  that  may  lead  to  permanent  engagements. 

1  Emerson  was  invited  to  compete  there  with  several  other 
eanclidates,  but  declined. 


136  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON, 

For  I  fancy  myself  dependent  for  my  degree  of 
health  upon  my  lounging,  capricious,  unfettered 
mode  of  life ;  and  I  keep  myself  and  slowly  multi- 
ply sermons  for  a  day,  I  hope,  of  firmer  health  and 
solid  powers. 

April  30,  1828.  Why  do  you  work  so  hard? 
Have  you  forgotten  that  all  the  Emersons  overdo 
themselves  ?  Don't  you  die  of  the  leprosy  of  your 
race,  ill-weaved  ambition.  Why,  here  am  I  loung- 
ing, on  a  system,  for  these  many  months,  writing 
something  less  than  a  sermon  a  month.  The  conse- 
quence is  I  begin  to  mend,  and  am  said  to  look 
less  like  a  monument  and  more  like  a  man.  I 
can't  persuade  that  wilful  brother  Edward  of  mine 
to  use  the  same  nostrum.  I  escape  from  the  writ- 
ing-desk as  from  a  snake,  and  go  straight  to  quar- 
ter myself  on  the  first  person  I  can  think  of  in 
Divinity  Hall.  Especially  I  court  laughing  per- 
sons, and  after  a  merry  or  only  a  gossiping  hour, 
when  the  talk  has  been  mere  soap-bubbles,  I  have 
lost  all  sense  of  the  mouse  in  my  chest,  am  at  ease, 
and  can  take  my  pen  or  book.  I  always  take  as 
much  exercise  as  my  hip  can  bear,  and  always  at 
intervals  and  not  in  a  mass.  I  have  just  refused 
an  invitation  to  preach  as  candidate  at  Brighton. 
It  is  the  third  No  to  which  I  have  treated  the 
church  applicant  or  vacant. 

(Journal :  July  10,  1828.)     "  It  is  a  peculiarity 


RETURN  HOME.  137 

(I  find  by  observation  upon  others)  of  humor  in 
me,  my  strong  propensity  for  strolling.  I  deliber- 
ately shut  up  my  books  in  a  cloudy  July  noon,  put 
on  my  old  clothes  and  old  hat,  and  slink  away  to 
the  whortleberry  bushes,  and  slip  with  the  greatest 
satisfaction  into  a  little  cow-path  where  I  am  sure 
I  can  defy  observation.  This  point  gained,  I  solace 
myself  for  hours  with  picking  blueberries  and  other 
trash  of  the  woods,  far  from  fame  behind  the  birch- 
trees.  I  seldom  enjoy  hours  as  I  do  these.  I  re- 
member them  in  winter ;  I  expect  them  in  spring. 
I  do  not  know  a  creature  that  I  think  has  the  same 
humor,  or  would  think  it  respectable.  Yet  the 
friend  whom  I  seek  through  the  world,  now  in 
cities,  now  in  wildernesses,  now  at  sea,  will  know 
the  delight  of  sauntering  with  the  melancholy 
Jaques.  I  am  not  so  enamored  of  liberty  as  to 
love  to  be  idle.  But  the  only  evil  I  find  in  idleness 
is  unhappiness.  I  love  to  be  my  own  master  when 
my  spirits  are  prompt,  when  my  brain  is  vegete 
and  apt  for  thought.  If  I  were  richer,  I  should 
lead  a  better  life  than  I  do ;  that  is,  better  divided 
and  more  able.  I  should  ride  on  horseback  a  good 
deal ;  I  should  bowl,  and  create  an  appetite  for 
my  studies  by  intermixing  some  heat  and  labor  in 
affairs.  The  chief  advantage  I  should  propose  my- 
self in  wealth  would  be  the  independence  of  man- 
ner and  conversation  it  would  bestow,  and  which 
I  eagerly  covet  and  seldom  quite  attain,  in  some 
companies  never." 


138  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

In  his  incapacity  for  continued  exertion  lie  had 
thought,, his  brother  Edward  says,  of  giving  up  the 
ministry  and  going  back  to  school-keeping.  But 
this  was  an  alternative  he  could  hardly  face ;  he 
decided  to  stay  in  Cambridge,  pick  up  what  he 
could  from  the  lectures,  and  bide  his  time,  hoping 
for  better  days. 

It  was  during  his  second  residence  at  Divinity 
Hall  that  Dr.  Hedge  met  him  there.  I  insert, 
with  Dr.  Hedge's  kind  permission,  his  account  of 
the  impression  Emerson  made  upon  him :  — 

"  My  acquaintance  with  Emerson  began  in  1828. 
He  was  then  living  in  Divinity  Hall,  Cambridge, 
and,  though  not  a  member  of  the  Divinity  School, 
and  taking  no  part  in  the  exercises,  wras  understood 
to  be  a  candidate  for  the  ministry,  preparing  him- 
self in  his  own  way  for  the  function  of  preacher. 
There  was  no  presage  then,  that  I  remember,  of 
his  future  greatness.  His  proniise  seemed  faintjn 
comparison  with  the-  wondrous  -brilliancy  of  his 
younger^  brother,  Edward  Bliss  Emerson,  whose 
immense  expectation  was  doomed  never  to  be  ful- 
fTflecT  A  still  younger  brother,  Charles  Chauncy, 
had  also  won  admiration  from  contemporary  youths ; 
while  Waldo  bad  as  jrgt^given  no  proof  of  what 
was  in  him.  He  developed  slowly ;  yet  there  was 
notable  in  him  then,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  a  re- 
finement of  thought  and  a  selectness  in  the  use  of 
language  which  gave  promise  of  an  interesting 


RETURN  HOME.  189 

preacher  to  cultivated  hearers.  He  never  jested ; 
a  certain  reserve  in  his  jnaoajac-gestrainftd  {,hf»  Rest- 
ing propensity  and  any  license  of  speech  in  others. 
He  kept  a  diary,  in  which  he  recorded  whatever  he 
had  heard  that  seemed  to  him  remarkable,  during 
the  day.  I  remember  his  coming  to  me  one  even- 
ing to  learn  some  particulars  in  an  anecdote  with 
which  Professor  Norton  had  illustrated  his  re- 
marks on  a  sermon  just  preached  by  one  of  the 
students  in  Divinity  Hall  Chapel.  He  could  not 
sleep  until  he  had  made  a  note  of  the  whole.  I 
tried  to  interest  him  in  German  literature,  but  he 
laughingly  said  that  as  he  was  entirely  ignorant  of 
the  subject,  he  should  assume  that  it  was  not  worth 
knowing.  Later  he  studied  German,  mainly  for 
the  purpose  of  acquainting  himself  with  Goethe,  to 
whom  his  attention  had  been  directed  by  Carlyle. 
He  was  slow  in  his  movements,  as  in  his  speech. 
He  never  through  eagerness  interrupted  any  speaker 
with  whom  he  conversed,  however  prepossessed 
with  a  contrary  opinion.  And  no  one,  I  think, 
ever  saw  him  run.  In  ethics  he  held  very  positive 
opinions.  Here  his  native  independence  of  thought 
was  manifest.  '  Owe  no  conformity  to  custom,' 
he  said,  '  against  your  private  judgment.'  '  Have 
no  regard  to  the  influence  of  your  example,  but 
act  always  from  the  simplest  motive.'  " 

Emerson  remained  a  year  at  Divinity  Hall,  and 


140  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

must  have  soon  begun  to  gain  in  health,  since  be- 
fore long  he  was  able  to  preach  pretty  regularly 
every  Sunday,  in  various  places  where  the  services 
of  a  young  substitute  happened  to  be  in  demand. 

In  Edward,  the  family  tendency  to  disease  was 
inflamed  by  a  less  prudent  course  into  lasting  ill- 
ness, and  finally  an  attack  of  mental  derange- 
ment. His  ardent  spirit  fretted  at  all  obstacles, 
and  kept  him  constantly  on  the  stretch.  He  heaped 
employment  upon  employment,  —  studied  law,  was 
private  tutor,  reader,  confidential  agent,  —  until  in 
this  year  he  utterly  broke  down,  had  to  give  up 
everything  and  retire  to  Concord,  where  suddenly 
a  paroxysm  of  insanity  came  upon  him.  Waldo 
writes  to  William :  — 

CONCORD,  June  2,  1828. 

We  were  all  thoroughly  scared,  and  I  was  has- 
tened hither  from  New  Concord.  He  had  fainting 
fits  and  delirium,  and  had  been  strangely  affected 
in  his  mind  for  a  fortnight. 

DIVINITY  HALL,  June  90. 

We  are  born  to  trouble.  I  have  just  received 
a  letter  from  Concord,  to  say  that  Edward  is  ill 
again,  —  worse  than  before ;  in  a  state  of  violent 
derangement,  so  as  to  require  great  restraint. 
Mother  speaks  of  the  hospital  as  perhaps  a  dismal 
necessity. 

July  3.  Yesterday  we  brought  Edward  down 
to  Charlestown.  His  frenzy  took  all  forms;  but 


EDWARD  EMERSON'S  ILLNESS.  141 

what 's  the  need  of  relating  them  ?  There  he  lay, 
—  Edward,  the  admired,  learned,  eloquent,  striv- 
ing boy,  —  a  maniac.  Dr.  Wyman  objected  very 
strongly  to  taking  him,  saying  it  was  a  very  pe- 
culiar case,  and  ought  to  be  dealt  with  alone  and 
under  private  care.  He  grants  the  great  privilege 
of  entire  seclusion  from  all  other  patients.  I  can- 
not persuade  myself  to  hope.  But  God  can  do  all 
things.  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  he  will  be  re- 
stored to  reason,  but  I  fear  he  will  now  always  hold 
it  on  the  precarious  tenure  of  the  state  of  stomach. 

As  he  expected,  Edward  soon  recovered  his  rea- 
son, but  never  his  health  or  his  ability  to  carry  on 
the  studies  and  labors  of  his  profession.  He  had 
to  renounce  his  hoped-for  career  and  exile  himself 
to  the  West  Indies,  where  he  died  a  few  years 
afterwards. 

It  was  a  severe  blow  to  Waldo.  Edward  was 
nearer  to  him  than  any  one ;  both  their  likeness 
and  their  unlikeness  fitted  them  together ;  each 
was  the  other's  sharpest  critic  and  warmest  ad- 
mirer. And  was  not  the  same  fate,  he  asked  him- 
self, in  reserve  for  him  ? 

"When  I  consider  [he  writes  in  his  journal] 
the  constitutional  calamity  of  my  family,  which,  in 
its  falling  upon  Edward,  has  buried  at  once  so 
many  towering  hopes,  —  with  whatever  reason,  I 
have  little  apprehension  of  my  own  liability  to  the 


142  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

same  evil.  I  have  so  much  mixture  of  silliness  in 
my  intellectual  frame  that  I  think  Providence  has 
tempered  me  against  this.  My  brother  lived  and 
acted  and  spoke  with  preternatural  energy.  My  own 
manner  is  sluggish ;  my  speech  sometimes  flippant, 
sometimes  embarrassed  and  ragged ;  my  actions  (if 
I  may  say  so)  are  of  a  passive  kind.  Edward  had 
always  great  power  of  face.  I  have  none ;  I  laugh, 
I  blush,  I  look  ill-tempered,  against  my  will  and 
against  my  interest.  But  all  this  imperfection,  as 
it  appears  to  me,  is  a  ballast,  as  things  go,  is  a 
defence.  Woe  is  me,  my  brother,  for  you !  Please 
God  to  rescue  and  restore  him." 

Among  the  places  where  Emerson  had  preached 
was  Concord,  New  Hampshire  (New  Concord). 
Here,  in  December,  1827,  he  first  saw  Ellen  Tucker, 
his  future  wife.  When  Edward,  a  year  afterwards, 
left  the  Charlestown  asylum,  it  was  thought  best 
that  he  should  travel  a  little,  and  Waldo  took  him 
up  into  New  Hampshire  and  to  New  Concord.  He 
writes  to  William  :  — 

DIVINITY  HALL,  November  10,  1828. 

.  .  .  Edward  is  a  great  deal  better.  I  propose 
getting  an  engagement  to  preach  in  the  country 
and  taking  him  with  me. 

December  4.  Edward  is  quite  well,  it  seems. 
He  is  going  with  me  day  after  to-morrow  to  Con- 
cord, N.  H.,  to  spend  three  Sundays,  and  then  re- 
turn to  Concord,  Mass. 


ENGAGEMENT  TO  MISS  TUCKER.         143 

At  New  Concord  he  met  Miss  Tucker  again,  with 
consequences  which  he  relates  in  the  following  let- 
ter to  his  brother  William :  — 

DIVINITY  HALL,  December  24,  1828. 
MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  —  I  have  the  happiness  to 
inform  you  that  I  have  been  now  for  one  week  en- 
gaged to  Ellen  Louisa  Tucker,  a  young  lady  who, 
if  you  will  trust  me,  is  the  fairest  and  best  of  her 
kind.  She  is  the  youngest  daughter  of  the  late 
Beza  Tucker,  a  merchant  of  Boston.  The  mother 
has  now  been  three  or  four  years  the  wife  of  Colo- 
nel W.  A.  Kent,  of  Concord,  N.  H.  It  is  now 
just  a  year  since  I  became  acquainted  with  Ellen, 
at  that  house ;  but  I  thought  I  had  got  over  my 
blushes  and  my  wishes  when  now  I  determined  to 
go  into  that  dangerous  neighborhood  on  Edward's 
account.  But  the  presumptuous  man  was  over- 
thrown by  the  eyes  and  the  ear,  and  surrendered  at 
discretion.  He  is  now  as  happy  as  it  is  safe  in  life 
to  be.  She  is  seventeen  years  old,  and  very  beau- 
tiful, by  universal  consent. 

Your  affectionate  brother,  WALDO. 

Miss.  Tucker  appears,  by  universal  consent,  to 
have  been  a  very  lovely  person ;  but  her  pathetic 
charm  was  due  in  part  to  the  touch  of  a  mortal 
malady,  of  which  her  brave  and  buoyant  spirit 
made  so  light  that  even  her  physicians  were  de- 
ceived into  hopes  of  her  recovery. 


144  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

BOSTON,  January  28,  1829. 

DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  Since  I  wrote,  my  beautiful 
friend  has  made  me  very  sorry  by  being  very  ill, 
and  with  that  dangerous  complaint  which  so  often 
attacks  the  fairest  in  our  stern  climate ;  she  has 
raised  blood  a  week  ago.  Beauty  has  got  better, 
and  so  I  am  better,  but  I  have  abstained,  in  much 
perplexity,  from  giving  any  answer  to  the  call  at 
the  Old  North  [the  Second  Church  of  Boston], 
thinking  that  perhaps  the  doctors  might  tell  Ellen 
that  she  ought  to  go  away,  and  then  —  But 
now  that  I  have  talked  with  Dr.  Jackson,  and 
talked  with  the  committee-men,  I  believe  next  Sun- 
day I  shall  say  yes.  I  wish  you  could  see  Ellen. 
Why  can't  you  come  to  my  ordination  (if  such 
thing  shall  be)  and  see  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and 
of  me? 

February  20,  1829.  Ellen  is  mending  day  by 
day.  'T  would  take  more  time  than  I  can  spare  to 
tell  how  excellent  a  piece  of  work  she  is.  She  tri- 
fles so  much  with  her  ails,  and  loses  no  jot  of  spirits, 
that  we  talk  grave  only  when  asunder. 

Some  months  before  this  he  had  written  to  his 
brother  :  "  Mr.  Ware  [Reverend  Henry  Ware,  Jr., 
minister  of  the  Second  Church]  is  ill  again,  and  all 
good  men  are  sorry.  You  see  what  lies  before 
your  brother  for  his  mortal  lot.  To  be  a  good 


CALL  TO  SECOND  CHURCH.  145 

minister  and  healthy  is  not  given.  The  event  will 
probably  confine  me  where  I  am  for  the  winter.  It 
has  some  obvious  advantages  over  any  other  ser- 
vice, but  involves  more  labor." 

Emerson  had  been  invited  to  fill  the  pulpit  during 
Mr.  Ware's  illness,  but  when  it  was  reported  that 
a  professorship  at  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School 
had  been  offered  to  Mr.  Ware,  and  that  he  would 
probably  accept  it  and  thereby  vacate  his  pulpit, 
Emerson  declined  to  preach  there  any  longer,  feel- 
ing that  if  the  place  was  to  be  regarded  as  open 
to  candidates  he  would  not  monopolize  it.  "  If  I 
am  settled  [he  said],  I  choose  it  should  be  on  my 
own  merits,  and  not  because  I  have  kept  a  better 
man  from  being  heard." 

Mr.  Ware  wished  to  resign  his  office,  but  was 
persuaded  to  retain  it  for  a  while,  the  parish  ap- 
pointing a  colleague  to  perform  the  services  during 
his  absence.  Emerson  was  chosen,  receiving,  he 
tells  William,  "  seventy-four  out  of  seventy-nine 
votes ;  and  three  given  for  Dr.  Follen  were  by  one 
person  holding  three  pews,  who  declares  himself 
nowise  unfriendly  to  Mr.  E.,  but  wants  to  wait  a 
little.  Everything  in  reference  to  this  call  is  in 
the  highest  degree  gratifying,  as  far  as  a  decided 
and  strong  good-will  can  be  so." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EMERSON  AT  THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  —  HIS  MAR- 
RIAGE. -  THE  DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE.  -  RESIGNA- 
TION OF  HIS  OFFICE.  —  VISIT  TO  EUROPE. 

1829-1832. 
EMERSON  was  ordained  as  colleague    of^Mr. 


Ware  on  the  llth  of  March,  1829.  A  few  weeks 
afterwards,  Mr.  Ware  deciding  to~try  the  effect  of 
a  voyage,  and  upon  his  return  to  accept  the  Divin- 
ity School  professorship,  Emerson,  with  Mr.  Ware's 
"  complete  satisfaction,"  became  the  sole  incum- 
bent. 

In  September  he  was  married.  They  went  to 
live  in  Chardon  Place,  and  invited  his  mother  to 
join  them.  He  might  well  think  that  good  days 
were  preparing  for  him.  He  had  promptly  and 
easily  reached  a  position  that  might  satisfy  all  his 
aspirations  :  he  was  the  head  of  an  honored  church.;. 
he  was  married  to  a  wife  who  was  u  a  bright  rev- 
elation to  me  of  the  best  nature  of  woman  ;  "  he 
was  able  to  provide  a  comfortable  home  for  his 
mother,  and  a  gathering-place  for.  the  brothers  ; 
lastly,  his  health,  though  not  entirely  assured,  was 
for  the  time  free  from  active  disturbance.  Yet  the 


THE  SECOND   CHURCH.  147 

fair  prospect  seems  to  have  been  clouded  over  by 
a  vague  forecast  of  ill.  He  writes  to  Miss  Mary 
Emerson  :  — 

BOSTON,  January  6,  1829. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT,  —  You  know  —  none  can 
know  better  —  on  what  straitened  lines  we  have 
all  walked  up  to  manhood.  In  poverty  and  many 
troubles  the  seeds  of  our  prosperity  were  sown. 
Now  all  these  troubles  appeared  a  fair  counterbal- 
ance to  the  flatteries  of  fortune.  I  lean  always  to 
that  ancient  superstition  (if  it  is  such,  though 
drawn  from  a  wise  survey  of  human  affairs)  which 
taught  men  to  beware  of  unmixed  prosperity ;  for 
Nemesis  kept  watch  to  overthrow  the  high.  Well, 
now  look  at  the  altered  aspect.  William  has  be- 
gun to  live  by  the  law.  Edward  has  recovered  his 
reason  and  his  health.  Bulkeley  was  never  more 
comfortable  in  his  life.  Charles  is  prospering  in 
all  ways.  Waldo  is  comparatively  well  and  com- 
paratively successful,  —  far  more  so  than  his 
friends,  out  of  his  family,  anticipated.  Now  I  add 
to  all  this  felicity  a  particular  felicity  which  makes 
my  own  glass  very  much  larger  and  fuller,  and  I 
straightway  say,  Can  this  hold  ?  Will  God  make 
me  a  brilliant  exception  to  the  common  order  of 
his  dealings,  which  equalizes  destinies  ?  There  's 
an  apprehension  of  reverse  always  arising  from 
success.  But  is  it  my  fault  that  I  am  happy,  and 
cannot  I  trust  the  Goodness  that  has  uplifted  to 


148  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

uphold  me  ?  I  cannot  find  in  the  world,  without 
or  within,  any  antidote,  any  bulwark  against  this 
fear,  like  this :  the  frank  acknowledgment  of  un- 
bounded dependence.  Let  into  the  heart  that  is 
filled  with  prosperity  the  idea  of  God,  and  it 
smooths  the  giddy  precipices  of  human  pride  to  a 
substantial  level ;  it  harmonizes  the  condition  of 
the  individual  with  the  economy  of  the  universe.  I 
should  be  glad,  dear  aunt,  if  you,  who  are  my  oldest 
friend,  would  give  me  some  of  your  meditations 
upon  these  new  leaves  of  my  fortune.  You  have 
always  promised  me  success,  and  now  when  it 
seems  to  be  coming  I  choose  to  direct  to  you  this 
letter,  which  I  enter  as  a  sort  of  protest  against 
my  Ahriman;  that,  if  I  am  called,  after  the  way 
of  my  race,  to  pay  a  fatal  tax  for  my  good,  I  may 
appeal  to  the  sentiment  of  collected  anticipation 
with  which  I  saw  the  tide  turn  and  the  winds  blow 
softly  from  the  favoring  west. 

This  tone  of  foreboding  did  not  belong  to  Emer- 
son's disposition,  —  nothing  was  farther  from  him 
than  the  inclination  to  "  borrow  trouble ;"  yet  it 
does  not  appear  strange  when  we  remember  that 
his  youth  and  early  manhood  had  been  passed  in  a 
struggle  with  constantly  recurring  invalidism,  and 
that  at  this  time,  in  spite  of  his  constitutional  in- 
curiosity about  the  future,  he  must  have  obscurely 
felt  the  doom  that  was  hanging,  unavertible,  over 
those  dearest  to  him. 


THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  149 

Meantime  Jie  set  himself  to  bis  work,  with  good 
heart  and  without  any  forecast  of  the  disappoint- 
ment he  was  to  meet  in  that  also.  In  two  sermons 
preached  on  the  Sunday  after  his  ordination,  "  com- 
plying with  a  most  reasonable  usage,"  he  set  forth 
his  views  of  the  minister's  duties,  without  any  hint 
of  innovation  except  the  warning  that  he  should 
not  scruple  to  introduce  into  the  pulpit  homely 
illustrations  and  allusions,  where  they  could  be  in- 
troduced with  advantage.  Our  usage  of  preaching, 
he  says,  is  too  straitened  :  — 

"  It  does  not  apply  itself  to  all  the  good  and  evil 
that  is  in  the  human  bosom.  It  walks  in  a  narrow 
round  ;  it  harps  on  a  few  and  ancient  strings.  It 
is  much  addicted  to  a  few  words ;  it  holds  on  to 
phrases  when  the  lapse  of  time  has  changed 
their  meaning.  Men  imagine  that  the  end  and  use 
of  preaching  is  to  expound  a  text,  and  forget  that 
Christianity  is  an  infinite  and  universal  law  ;  that 
it  is  the  revelation  of  a  Deity  whose  being  the  soul 
cannot  reject  without  denying  itself,  a  rule  of  ac- 
tion which  penetrates  into  every  moment  and  into 
the  smallest  duty.  If  any  one  hereafter  should  ob- 
ject to  the  want  of  sanctity  of  my  style  and  the 
want  of  solemnity  in  my  illustrations,  I  shall  re- 
mind him  that  the  language  and  the  images  of 
Scripture  derive  all  their  dignity  from  their  asso- 
ciation with  divine  truth,  and  that  our  Lord  con- 
descended to  explain  himself  by  allusions  to  every 


150  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

homely  fact,  and,  if  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
men  of  this  age,  would  appeal  to  those  arts  and 
objects  by  which  we  are  surrounded ;  to  the  print- 
ing-press and  the  loom,  to  the  phenomena  of  steam 
and  of  gas,  to  free  institutions  and  a  petulant  and 
vain  nation." 

The  duty  of  a  Christian  minister,  also,  he  says, 
"  imperiously  demands  the  critical  knowledge  of 
the  Christian  Scriptures,  which  are  to  be  considered 
the  direct  voice  of  the  Most  High.  But  it  does  not 
less  demand  the  contemplation  of  his  benevolence 
and  his  might  in  his  works.  It  demands  a  discipline 
of  the  intellect,  but  more  than  all  it  demands  a 
training  of  the  affections.  Whatever  else  can  be 
spared,  this  is  essential." 

"  Emerson's  early  sermons  [says  Dr.  Hedge,  in 
the  reminiscences  from  which  I  have  quoted]  were 
characterized  by  great  simplicity  and  an  unconven- 
tional, untheological  style,  which  brought  him  into 
closer  rapport  with  hi%  hearers  than  was  commonly 
achieved  by  the  pulpit  in  those  days.  Hearers  of 
an  orthodox  turn  were  shocked  by  what  seemed  to 
them  unsanctified  discourse,  but  those  who  listened 
with  unprejudiced  and  appreciative  minds,  espe- 
cially the  young,  were  charmed  by  his  preaching 
as  by  no  other.  He  won  his  first  admirers  in  the 
pulpit." 

One  of  his  congregation  of  that  time  tells  me 
that  the  chief  impression  on  his  boyish  mind  was 


THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  151 

that  of  the  reality  given  to  the  things  of  religion. 
They  were  as  real  as  the  things  in  the  street.  To 
the  same  point,  Miss  Margaret  Fuller,  who  came 
to  hear  him,  and  brought  others  with  her  to  the  un- 
fashionable precincts  of  the  Old  North.  "  I  can- 
not care  much  for  preached  elevation  of  sentiment 
[she  says],  unless  I  have  seen  it  borne  out  by 
some  proof,  as  in  case  of  Mr.  Emerson.  It  is  so 
easy  for  a  cultivated  mind  to  excite  itself  with  that 
tone."  Only  two  of  Emerson's  pulpit  discourses 
have  been  printed  :  the  sermon  at  the  ordination 
of  the  Reverend  H.  B.  Goodwin  as  Dr.  Ripley's 
colleague  at  Concord,  in  1830,  and  the  sermon  on 
the  Lord's  Supper,  at  the  Second  Church,  when  he 
gave  up  his  charge  there.1  The  rest,  to  the  num- 
ber of  one  hundred  and  seventy-one,  still  lie  in 
manuscript,  and  he  expressed  his  desire  that  they 
should  so  remain.  What  strikes  me  in  reading 
them  over  is  first  of  all  the  absence  of  rhetoric. 
There  is  no  attempt  at  the  eloquence  or  magnilo- 
quence which  was  then  in  vogue,  and  of  which  Em- 
erson in  his  earlier  days  had  been  a  warm  admirer. 
All  this  had  long  since  lost  its  charm  for  him.  In 
his  journal  in  1826,  he  writes  :  "  The  aliquid  im- 
mensum,  etc.,  is  best  left  to  each  man's  youthful 
and  private  meditations.  This  straining  to  say 
what  is  unutterable,  and  vain  retching  with  the 
imbecile  use  of  great  words,  is  nauseous  to  sound 

1  Collected  Writings,  xi.  9. 


152  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

sense  and  good  taste.  'T  is  a  forgotten  maxim  that 
accuracy  is  essential  to  beauty." 

I  am  not  so  much  struck  with  any  innovation 
upon  the  current  style  of  preaching,  or  with  the 
homely  illustrations  from  every-day  life,  which 
might  be  expected  from  the  opening  discourse. 
Here  and  there  an  unclerical  expression  occurs, 
but  in  general  all  is  within  the  conventions  of 
the  Unitarian  pulpit.  Their  novelty,  so  far  as  I 
am  able  to  judge,  lies  in  the  prominence  that  is 
given  to  ethical  principles  over  doctrine  ;  and  even 
this  does  not  seem  very  marked.  The  ideas  of 
the  Essays,  —  the  idea  that  every  action  brings 
its  own  reward ;  that  no  ill  can  befall  us  without 
our  connivance  ;  that  every  day  is  a  Judgment 
Day ;  that  we  are  not  to  read  our  duty  in  the  eyes 
of  others,  but  are  to  settle  everything  anew  for 
ourselves,  and  especially  the  things  that  are  com- 
monly thought  to  be  finally  settled ;  that  spiritual 
truth  is  its  own  evidence,  and  needs  no  other,  — 
these  appear  more  and  more  as  time  goes  on,  but 
in  general  they  are  presented  in  Scriptural  lan- 
guage, as  if  they  belonged  to  the  body  of  accepted 
doctrine. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  we,  in 
these  days,  are  accustomed  to  a  style  of  preaching 
in  which  the  Christian  Scriptures  are  used  as  the 
illustration  rather  than  the  foundation  of  religious 
truth,  so  that  we  are  perhaps  less  alive  to  what 


THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  153 

then  might  seem  new  and  startling.  However  this 
may  be,  it  is  needless  to  show  that  there  is  no  trace 
of  accommodation  to  popular  opinion,  in  the  sense 
of  putting  on  the  semblance  of  any  belief  that  Emer- 
son himself  did  not  share.  But,  as  he  never  gave 
much  attention  to  the  process  by  which  his  convic- 
tions were  reached,  he  may  have  been  led  by  his 
position  to  support  his  beliefs  by  arguments  which 
had  more  weight  with  his  hearers  than  with  him- 
self. This  would  give  to  the  sermons,  as  we  read 
them,  a  tinge  of  conventionality  which  doubtless 
disappeared  when  they  were  heard.  And  what 
Emerson  says  of  Dr.  Channing,  that  his  discourses 
lose  their  best  in  losing  his  eye  and  voice,  is  no 
doubt  equally  true  of  his  own :  their  effect  was 
immediate  and  personal,  not  to  be  detached  from 
his  presence^  Of  their  effectiveness  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Emerson,  as  Dr.  Hedge  says,  won  his  first 
admirers  in  the  pulpit,  with  no  prestige  to  help 
him,  and  they  seem  to  have  found  in  him  there 
the  same  qualities  which  made  the  charm  of  his 
lectures.  One  of  his  regular  hearers  wrote  of 
him :  — 

44  In  looking  back  on  his  preaching  I  find  he  has 
impressed  truths  to  which  I  always  assented,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  make  them  appear  new,  like  a 
clearer  revelation.  He  is  truly  an  angel  to  me,  a  real 
messenger  from  heaven.  I  have  no  pleasure,  no 
mental  excitement,  so  great  as  that  of  listening  to 


154  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

him.  .  .  .  His  first  object  was  to  lead  us  to  God ; 
to  withdraw  the  veil  that  is  between  our  hearts 
and  Him." 

The  impression  he  made  is  described  by  Mr. 
Congdon,  in  an  often-quoted  passage  : 1  — 

"  One  day  there  came  into  our  pulpit  [at  New 
Bedford]  the  most  gracious  of  mortals,  with  a  face 
all  benignity,  who  gave  out  the  first  hymn  and  made 
the  first  prayer  as  an  angel  might  have  read  and 
prayed.  Our  choir  was  a  pretty  good  one,  but  its 
best  was  coarse  and  discordant  after  Emerson's 
voice.  I  remember  of  the  sermon  only  that  it  had 
an  indefinite  charm  of  simplicity  and  wisdom,  with 
occasional  illustrations  from  nature,  which  were 
about  the  most  delicate  and  dainty  things  of  the 
kind  which  I  had  ever  heard.  I  could  understand 
them,  if  not  the  fresh  philosophical  novelties  of 
the  discourse." 

Emerson  remained  at  the  Second  Church  a  little 
more  than  three  years,  until  the  summer  of  1832, 
and  then  broke  off  his  connection  with  it  (and,  as 
it  turned  out,  his  career  as  a  settled  minister),  in 
consequence  of  a  difference  of  opinion  concerning 
the  rite  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  which  he  found  him- 
self unable  to  regard  as  a  sacrament,  established 
by  Christ,  and  in  his  name  by  the  Church,  for  his 
followers  in  all  ages. 

1  Reminiscences  of  a  Journalist.  By  Charles  Taber  Congdon. 
Boston,  1880:  p.  33. 


THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  155 

He  was  ready  to  continue  the  service,  provided 
the  use  of  the  elements  was  dropped  and  the  rite 
made  merely  one  of  commemoration.  This  he  pro- 
posed to  the  church  in  June,  1832.  His  proposal 
was  referred  to  a  committee,  who  reported  shortly 
afterwards,  expressing  their  entire  confidence  in 
him,  but  declining  to  advise  any  change.  They 
did  not  conceive  it  to  be  their  business  to  discuss 
the  nature  of  the  rite,  or  the  considerations  that 
might  recommend  it  to  the  minds  of  different  per- 
sons; it  was  enough  that  it  was  generally  accep- 
table and  helpful,  on  whatever  grounds. 

It  remained  for  Emerson  to  decide  whether  he 
would  resign  his  office  rather  than  administer  the 
Communion  in  the  usual  form,  and  he  went  up  to 
the  White  Hills  for  a  week  or  so  to  think  it  over,  dur- 
ing a  suspension  of  the  church  services  occasioned 
by  some  repairs  of  the  meeting-house.  It  was  a 
difficult  decision,  for  there  was  much  to  be  said  in 
favor  of  the  view  which  was  urged  upon  him  by  his 
friends,  that  he  ought  not  to  allow  a  scruple  about 
forms  to  break  up  a  connection  which  was  on  the 
whole  satisfactory  and  profitable  on  both  sides. 
He  could  not  expect  to  find  another  church  so 
ready  to  accord  him  a  friendly  and  partial  consid- 
eration. 

(Journal.)  "  Ethan  Allen  Crawford's,  White 
Mountains,  July  14,  1832.  A  too  benevolent 
man  is  at  the  mercy  of  every  fop  he  meets  and  of 


156  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

every  household.  His  willingness  to  please  with- 
draws him  from  himself.  Sure  he  ought  to  please, 
but  not  to  please  at  the  expense  of  his  own  view, 
by  accommodation.  How  hard  to  command  the 
soul,  or  to  solicit  the  soul !  Many  of  our  actions, 
many  of  mine,  are  done  to  solicit  the  soul.  I 
would  think,  I  would  feel.  I  would  be  the  vehicle 
of  that  divine  principle  that  lurks  within,  and  of 
which  life  has  afforded  only  glimpses  enough  to 
assure  me  of  its  being.  We  know  little  of  its 
laws,  but  we  have  observed  that  a  north  wind,  clear, 
cold,  with  its  scattered  fleet  of  drifting  clouds, 
braced  the  body,  and  seemed  to  reflect  a  similar 
abyss  of  spiritual  heaven  between  clouds  in  our 
minds ;  or  a  brisk  conversation  moved  this  mighty 
deep ;  or  a  word  in  a  book  was  made  an  omen  of 
by  the  mind  and  surcharged  with  meaning ;  or  a 
cloudy,  lonely  walk,  '  striking  the  electric  chain 
wherewith  we  are  darkly  bound.'  And  having  this 
experience,  we  strive  to  avail  ourselves  of  it,  and 
propitiate  the  divine  inmate  to  speak  to  us  again 
out  of  clouds  and  darkness. 

"  The  good  of  going  into  the  mountains  is  that 
life  is  reconsidered ;  it  is  far  from  the  slavery  of 
your  own  modes  of  living,  and  you  have  oppor- 
tunity of  viewing  the  town  at  such  a  distance  as 
may  afford  you  a  just  view.  But  the  hours  pass 
on,  creep  or  fly,  and  bear  me  and  my  fellows  to 
the  decisions  of  questions  of  duty,  to  the  crises  of 


THE  SECOND  CHURCH.  157 

our  fate,  and  to  the  solution  of  the  mortal  problem. 
.  .  .  The  hour  of  decision.  It  seems  not  worth 
while  for  them  who  charge  others  with  exalting 
forms  above  the  moon  to  fear  forms  themselves 
with  extravagant  dislike.  I  am  so  pleased  that  my 
aliquid  ingenii  may  be  brought  into  useful  action, 
let  me  not  bury  my  talent  in  the  earth  in  my  in- 
dignation at  this  windmill.  Though  the  thing  may 
be  useless  and  even  pernicious,  do  not  destroy  what 
is  good  and  useful  in  a  high  degree  rather  than 
comply  with  what  is  hurtful  in  a  small  degree. 
The  communicant  celebrates,  on  a  foundation  either 
of  authority  or  of  tradition,  an  ordinance  which  has 
been  the  occasion  to  thousands  —  I  hope  to  thou- 
sands of  thousands  —  of  contrition,  of  gratitude, 
of  prayer,  of  faith,  of  love,  of  holy  living.  Far 
be  it  from  any  of  my  friends  —  God  forbid  it  be 
in  my  heart  —  to  interrupt  any  occasion  thus 
blessed  of  God's  influences  upon  the  human  mind. 
I  will  not,  because  we  may  not  all  think  alike  of 
the  means,  fight  so  strenuously  against  the  means 
as  to  miss  of  the  end  which  we  all  value  alike.  I 
think  Jesus  did  not  mean  to  institute  a  perpetual 
celebration,  but  that  a  commemoration  of  him 
would  be  useful.  Others  think  that  Jesus  did  es- 
tablish this  one.  We  are  agreed  that  one  is  use- 
ful, and  we  are  agreed,  I  hope,  in  the  way  in 
which  it  must  be  made  useful,  namely,  by  each  one 
making  it  an  original  commemoration.  I  know 


158  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

very  well  that  it  is  a  bad  sign  in  a  man  to  be  too 
conscientious  and  stick  at  gnats.  The  most  despe- 
rate scoundrels  have  been  the  over-refiners.  With- 
out accommodation  society  is  impracticable.  But 
this  ordinance  is  esteemed  the  most  sacred  of  reli- 
gious institutions,  and  I  cannot  go  habitually  to 
an  institution  which  they  esteem  holiest  with  indif- 
ference or  dislike." 

He  found  that  he  could  not  comply.  Upon  his 
return  he  set  forth  in  a  sermon  l  the  grounds  of  his 
dissent,  and  announced  his  intention  of  resigning 
his  charge,  which  he  did  on  the  same  day.  The 
church  was  very  unwilling  to  part  with  him,  and 
efforts  were  made  to  arrive  at  some  arrangement. 
Several  meetings  were  held,  and  the  proprietors  of 
pews  were  called  in,  as  having  "  an  undoubted  right 
to  retain  Mr.  Emerson  as  their  pastor,  without 
reference  to  the  opposition  of  the  church."  At 
length,  after  two  adjournments  and  much  discus- 
sion, it  was  decided  by  thirty  votes  against  twenty- 
four  to  accept  his  resignation.  It  was  voted  at  the 
same  time  to  continue  his  salary  for  the  present. 

His  cutting  himself  adrift  rather  than  submit  to 
the  slight  constraint  of  the  Unitarian  forms  was 
thought  by  some  of  his  brother  ministers  rather 
"Quakerish,"  and  there  were  loud  whispers  of 
mental  derangement.  He  on  his  side  seems  to  have 
been  not  merely  pained  but  disappointed  at  the  re- 

1  Collected  Writings,  ai  9. 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          159 

suit.  He  seems  to  have  thought  it  not  impossible 
that  the  church  would  agree  to  his  terms.  But  the 
difference  of  views  about  the  Communion  Service 
was  in  truth  only  the  symptom  of  a  deeper  differ- 
ence, which  would  in  any  case  sooner  or  later  ha ve_ 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  retain  his  office  ;  a 
disagreement  not  so  much  about  particular  doc- 
trines or  observances  as  about  their  sanction,  the 
authority  on  which  all  doctrines  and  observances 
rest.  This  had  begun  to  declare  itself  when  he 
was  at  the  Divinity  School,  listening  to  the  schemes 
of  the  Liberal  theologians,  and  at  the  same  time 
meditating  on  Coleridge's  proposed  reconstruction 
of  Christian  theology.  He  writes  to  Miss  Mary 
Emerson  :  — 

September  23,  1826. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT,  —  Is  it  not  true  that  modern 
philosophy,  by  a  stout  reaction,  has  got  to  be  very 
conversant  with  feelings  ?  Bare  reason,  cold  as 
cucumber,  was  all  that  was  tolerated,  till  men  grew 
disgusted  at  the  skeleton,  and  have  given  him  in 
ward  into  the  hands  of  his  sister ;  blushing,  shin- 
ing, changing  sentiment.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is 
one  of  the  feelings  of  modern  philosophy  that  it  is 
wrong  to  regard  ourselves  so  much  in  an  historical 
light  as  we  do,  —  putting  Time  between  God  and 
us,  —  and  that  it  were  fitter  to  regard  every  mo- 
ment of  the  existence  of  the  universe  as  a  new 
creation,  and  all  as  a  revelation  proceeding  each 


160  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

moment  from  the  Divinity  to  the  mind  of  the  ob- 
server. It  is  certain  that  the  moral  world,  as  it 
exists  to  the  man  within  the  breast,  is  illustrated, 
interpreted,  defined,  by  the  positive  institutions 
that  exist  in  the  world ;  that,  in  the  aspect  dis- 
closed to  a  mind  in  this  hour  opening  in  these  parts 
of  the  earth,  Christianity  appears  the  priest,  the 
expounder  of  God's  moral  law.  It  is  plainly  a  fit 
representative  of  the  Law-giver.  It  speaks  the  voice 
God  might  speak.  We  ought  not,  therefore,  to 
have  this  mighty  regard  to  the  long  antiquity  of 
its  growth,  and  to  the  genuineness  or  fallacy  of 
pretensions  on  which  the  dust  of  sixteen  or  eighteen 
centuries  has  gathered,  but  consider  its  present 
condition  as  a  thing  entirely  independent  of  the 
ways  and  means  whereby  it  came  into  that  condi- 
tion, and,  neither  seeing  what  it  was  nor  hearing 
what  it  said  to  past  generations,  examine  what  it 
is,  and  hear  what  it  saith  to  us.  This  is  probably 
the  most  plausible  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  rela- 
tive and  absolute  truth.  That  it  is  absolutely  true 
is  perhaps  capable  of  evidence.  That  it  is  rela- 
tively true  is  certain ;  and  thus  it  may  procure  for 
us  all  the  eternal  good  it  ever  pretended  to  offer. 

In  this  novel  application  of  Hume's  doctrine  or 
rather  suggestion,  of  the  "  relativity  of  human 
knowledge,"  Emerson  was  influenced  by  Coleridge, 
and,  through  Coleridge,  by  Kant  and  Schelling. 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          161 

Coleridge's  zeal  in  behalf  of  the  Anglican  Church 
somewhat  lessened  him  in  Emerson's  eyes,  but  he 
readily  absorbed  the  transcendentalism  that  lay  be- 
neath it,  —  the  reliance  on  reason  as  the  organ  of 
universal  ideas.  He  writes  to  Miss  Emerson  :  — 

"  December  10,  1829.  I  am  reading  Coleridge's 
*  Friend  '  with  great  interest.  You  don't  speak  of 
him  with  respect.  He  has  a  tone  a  little  lower 
than  greatness,  but  what  a  living  soul,  what  a  uni- 
versal knowledge  !  I  like  to  encounter  these  citi- 
zens of  the  universe,  that  believe  the  mind  was 
made  to  be  spectator  of  all,  inquisitor  of  all,  and 
whose  philosophy  compares  with  others  much  as 
astronomy  with  the  other  sciences  ;  taking  post  at 
the  centre,  and,  as  from  a  specular  mount,  sending 
sovereign  glances  to  the  circumference  of  things. 
One  more  instance  of  what  is  always  interesting, 
the  restless  human  soul  bursting  the  narrow  boun- 
daries of  antique  speculation,  and  mad  to  know  the 
secrets  of  that  unknown  world  on  whose  brink  it  is 
sure  it  is  standing,  —  yea,  now  and  then  can  over- 
hear passing  words  of  the  talk  of  the  inhabitants. 
At  least  I  become  acquainted  with  one  new  mind 
I  never  saw  before,  an  acquisition  not  unimpor- 
tant when  it  is  remembered  that,  so  gregarious  are 
even  intellectual  men,  Aristotle  thinks  for  thou- 
sands, and  Bacon  for  tens  of  thousands ;  and  so,  in 
enumerating  the  apparently  manifold  philosophies 
and  forms  of  thought,  we  should  not  be  able  to 


162  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

count  more  than  seven  or  eight  minds.  'T  is  the 
privilege  of  his  independence  and  his  labor  to  be 
counted  for  one  school.  His  theological  specula- 
tions are  at  least  God  viewed  from  one  position." 

Emerson's  Swedenborgian  friend,  Sampson  Reed, 
was  also  of  influence  with  him,  — not  to  draw  him 
towards  the  Swedenborgian  forms,  any  more  than 
Coleridge  drew  him  towards  the  Anglican,  but 
rather  to  lead  him  to  detach  religion  more  and 
more  from  all  forms. 

(Journal.)  "  Chardon  Street,  October  9,  1829. 
I  am  glad  to  see  that  interpretations  of  Scripture 
like  those  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church  can  be 
accepted  in  our  community.  The  most  spiritual 
and  sublime  sense  is  put  upon  various  historical 
passages  of  the  New  Testament.  The  interpreta- 
tion is  doubtless  wholly  false.  The  Apostle  John 
and  our  Saviour  meant  no  such  things.  But  the 
sentiment  which  the  commentator  puts  into  their 
mouths  is  nevertheless  true  and  eternal.  The 
wider  that  sentiment  can  be  spread,  and  the  more 
effect  it  can  have  on  men's  lives,  the  better.  And 
if  the  fool-part  of  man  must  have  the  lie  ;  if  truth 
is  a  pill  that  can't  go  down  till  it  is  sugared  with 
superstition,  —  why,  then  I  will  forgive  the  last,  in 
the  belief  that  truth  will  enter  into  the  soul  so  na- 
tively and  assimilantly  that  it  will  become  part  of 
the  soul,  and  so  remain  when  the  falsehood  grows 
dry  and  peels  off." 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS   CHARGE.          163 

This  exaltation  of  the  religious  sentiment  above 
the  interpretations  of  the  understanding,  while  it 
made  Emerson  charitable  and  even  tender  towards 
every  form  of  genuine  religion,  was  a  habit  of 
mind  more  appropriate  to  the  solitary  thinker  than 
to  the  parish  minister.  In  the  first  year  of  his 
ministry,  he  writes  to  Miss  Mary  Emerson  :  — 

BOSTON,  December  10,  1829. 

What  a  fight  all  our  lives  long  between  prudence 
and  sentiment ;  though  you  contradicted  me  once, 
when  I  tried  to  make  a  sentence  that  life  was 
embarrassed  by  prudentials.  The  case  in  point  is 
this :  my  soul  is  chained  down  even  in  its  thoughts, 
where  it  should  be  freest,  lordliest.  The  Christmas 
comes,  —  a  hallowed  anniversary  to  me  as  to  others, 
yet  am  I  not  ready  to  explore  and  explain  the  way 
of  the  star-led  wizards ;  am  looking  at  the  same 
truth  which  they  sought,  on  quite  another  side  and 
in  novel  relations.  I  could  think  and  speak  to 
some  purpose,  1  say,  if  you  would  take  what  I  have 
got ;  but  if  I  must  do  what  seems  so  proper  and 
reasonable,  —  conform  to  the  occasion,  —  I  can  only 
say  what  is  trite,  and  will,  't  is  likely,  be  ineffec- 
tual. This  is  a  very  disadvantageous  example  of 
that  warfare  that  is  in  all  professional  life  between 
the  heroical  and  the  proper. 

And  in  his  journal :  — 


164  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSOX. 

"  January  10,  1832.  It  is  the  best  part  of  the 
man,  I  sometimes  think,  that  revolts  most  against 
his  being  a  minister.  His  good  revolts  from  official 
goodness.  If  he  never  spoke  or  acted  but  with  the 
full  consent  of  his  understanding,  if  the  whole  man 
acted  always,  how  powerful  would  be  every  act  and 
every  word !  Well,  then,  —  or  ill,  then,  — how  much 
power  he  sacrifices  by  conforming  himself  to  say  or 
do  in  other  folks'  time,  instead  of  in  his  own  !  The 
difficulty  is  that  we  do  not  make  a  world  of  our 
own,  but  fall  into  institutions  already  made,  and 
have  to  accommodate  ourselves  to  them  to  be  useful 
at  all ;  and  this  accommodation  is,  I  say,  a  loss  of  so 
much  integrity,  and  of  course  of  so  much  power. 
But  how  shall  the  droning  world  get  on  if  all  its 
beaux  esprits  recalcitrate  upon  its  approved  forms 
and  accepted  institutions,  and  quit  them  all  in 
order  to  be  single-minded?  The  double-refiners 
would  produce  at  the  other  end  the  double- 
damned." 

"  January  30.  Every  man  hath  his  use,  no 
doubt,  and  every  one  makes  ever  the  effort,  ac- 
cording to  the  energy  of  his  own  character,  to  suit 
his  external  condition  to  his  inward  constitution. 
If  his  external  condition  does  not  admit  of  such  ac- 
commodation, he  breaks  the  form  of  his  life  and 
enters  a  new  one  which  does.  If  it  will  admit  of 
such  accommodation,  he  gradually  bends  it  to  his 
mind.  Thus  Finney  can  preach,  and  so  his  prayers 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          165 

are  short.  Parkman  can  pray,  and  so  his  prayers 
are  long.  Lowell  can  visit,  and  so  his  church  ser- 
vice is  less.  But  what  shall  poor  I  do,  who  can 
neither  visit,  nor  pray,  nor  preach,  to  my  mind  ?  " 

The  voluntary  prayer,  as  a  regular  part  of  Con- 
gregational worship,  might  have  proved  itself  an 
obstacle  to  him  sooner  than  the  Communion  Ser- 
vice, but  that  there  was  less  in  it  of  rigid  form. 
In  the  sermon  after  his  ordination,  he  said  of 
prayer  :  "  It  is  the  fruit  of  a  frame  of  mind  ;  it  is 
to  be  sought  in  the  affections,  and  not  in  the  intel- 
lect ;  in  its  excellence  its  power  is  singular ;  it  doth 
soothe,  refresh,  and  edify  the  soul  as  no  other  ex- 
ercises can."  Yet,  as  a  stated  public  observance, 
which  was  to  take  place  whether  the  participants 
were  in  the  right  frame  of  mind  or  not,  there  were 
objections  to  it  which  he  had  long  felt.  In  his 
journal  at  the  Divinity  School  he  writes :  — 

"April  12,  1826.  Most  men  who  have  given 
their  attention  to  the  prayers  publicly  offered  in  a 
Christian  congregation  have  felt  in  the  institution 
an  unsuitableness.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  public  prayer 
is  rather  the  offspring  of  our  notions  of  what  ought 
to  be  than  of  what  is.  It  has  grown  out  of  the 
sentiment  of  a  few  rather  than  the  reason  of  many. 
Indeed,  we  have  said  all,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  it, 
in  characterizing  it  as  an  appeal  to  our  veneration 
instead  of  our  sympathy.  That  it  is  right  to  ask 
God's  blessing  on  us  is  certainly  reasonable.  That 


166  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

it  is  right  to  enumerate  our  wants,  our  sins,  even  our 
sentiments,  in  addresses  to  this  unseen  Idea  seems 
just  and  natural.  And  it  may  be  probably  averred 
with  safety  that  there  has  been  no  man  that  never 
prayed.  That  persons  whom  like  circumstances 
and  like  feelings  assimilate,  that  a  family,  that  a 
picked  society  of  friends,  should  unite  in  this  ser- 
vice does  not,  I  conceive,  violate  any  precept  of  just 
reason.  It  is  certainly  a  question  of  more  difficult 
solution  whether  a  promiscuous  assemblage,  such  as 
is  contained  in  houses  of  public  worship  and  col- 
lected by  such  motives,  can  unite  with  propriety 
and  advantage  in  any  petition  such  as  is  usually 
offered  by  one  man." 

He  conformed  to  the  usage  without  making  any 
objection,  so  far  as  I  know,  as  long  as  he  remained 
at  the  Second  Church ;  though  he  sometimes  found 
himself  led,  he  told  Mrs.  Ripley,  to  say  what  he 
did  not  mean.  Thenceforth  he  declined  engage- 
ments that  involved  this  obligation ;  yet  he  gener- 
ally, I  believe,  when  he  was  in  the  pulpit,  offered 
prayer  in  his  own  fashion,  and  his  prayers  were 
noted  for  their  impressiveness. 

It  is  plain  from  all  sides  that  his  place  was  not 
in  the  pulpit  of  any  existing  church  ;  if  he  looked 
back  with  regret  to  the  career  that  was  thus  cut 
short,  it  was  because  he  looked  upon  it,  as  he  said 
of  prayer,  as  it  ought  to  be,  not  as  it  was. 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          167 

(Journal.)  "  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  in 
order  to  be  a  good  minister  it  was  necessary  to 
leave  the  ministry.  The  profession  is  antiquated. 
In  an  altered  age  we  worship  in  the  dead  forms  of 
our  forefathers.  Were  not  a  Socratic  Paganism 
better  than  an  effete  superannuated  Christianity  ? 
The  whole  world  holds  on  to  formal  Christianity, 
and  nobody  teaches  the  essential  truth,  the  heart 
of  Christianity,  for  fear  of  shocking,  etc.  Every 
teacher,  when  once  he  finds  himself  insisting  with 
all  his  might  upon  a  great  truth,  turns  up  the  ends 
of  it  at  last  with  a  cautious  showing  how  it  is 
agreeable  to  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  This 
cripples  his  teaching ;  it  bereaves  the  truth  he  in- 
culcates of  more  than  half  its  force  by  represent- 
ing it  as  something  secondary,  that  can't  stand 
alone." 

I  think  he  felt  this  to  be  true  in  some  degree  of 
himself,  —  that  his  position  had  involved,  not  in- 
deed any  insincerity,  but  some  degree  of  confor- 
mity ;  and  this  feeling  gave  him  a  sort  of  grudge 
against  preaching. 

"  I  hate  goodies  [he  writes  in  his  journal]. 
I  hate  goodness  that  preaches.  Goodness  that 
preaches  undoes  itself.  Goodies  make  us  very  bad. 
We  will  almost  sin  to  spite  them." 

He  preferred  the  goodness  that  grows  on  some 
"  wild  gentile  stock,"  like  Montaigne  :  — 

"  No  effeminate  parlor  workman  is  he,  on  an  idea 


168  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

got  at  an  evening  lecture  or  a  young  men's  debate, 
but  roundly  tells  what  he  saw  or  what  he  thought 
of  when  he  was  riding  on  horseback  or  entertaining 
a  troop  at  his  chateau.  A  gross,  semi-savage  in- 
decency debases  his  book,  and  ought  doubtless  to 
turn  it  out-of-doors ;  but  the  robustness  of  his  sen- 
timents, the  generosity  of  his  judgment,  the  down- 
right truth,  without  fear  or  favor,  I  do  embrace 
with  both  arms.  It  is  wild  and  savory  as  sweet- 
fern.  Henry  the  Eighth  loved  to  see  a  man ;  and 
it  is  exhilarating  once  in  a  while  to  come  across  a 
genuine  Saxon  stump,  a  wild,  virtuous  man,  who 
knows  books,  but  gives  them  their  right  place  in 
his  mind,  lower  than  his  reason.  Books  are  apt 
to  turn  reason  out-of-doors.  You  find  men  talking 
everywhere  from  their  memories,  instead  of  from 
their  understanding.  If  I  stole  this  thought  from 
Montaigne,  as  is  very  likely,  I  don't  care.  I  should 
have  said  the  same  myself."  1 

"  In  order  to  present  the  bare  idea  of  virtue,  it 
is  necessary  to  go  quite  out  of  our  circumstance 
and  custom ;  else  it  will  be  instantly  confounded 
with  the  poor  decency  or  inanition,  the  poor  ghost 
that  wears  its  name  in  good  society.  Therefore  it 
is  that  we  fly  to  the  pagans,  and  use  the  name  and 
relations  of  Socrates,  Confucius,  Menu,  Zoroaster; 
not  that  these  are  better  or  as  good  as  Jesus  and 
Paul  (for  they  have  not  uttered  so  deep  moralities), 
1  To  M.  M.  E.,  December  25,  1831. 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          169 

tecause  they  are  good  algebraic  terms,  not  lia- 
)  confusion  of  thought  like  those  we  habitually 
So  Michael  Angelo's  sonnets  to  Vittoria  Co- 
i,  we  see  to  be  mere  rhapsodies  to  virtue  ;  and 
m,  a  savage  artist,  they  are  as  unsuspicious, 
ating,  as  if  a  Spartan  or  an  Arab  spoke 
." l 

i  to  his  performance  of  the  other  pastoral  duties, 
e  visiting  of  the  sick  or  the  well,  and  gener- 
lis  personal  and  social  relations  to  his  flock, 
nerson  says  of  himself  that  he  did  not  excel, 
Dr.  Charles  Lowell,  in  "  domiciliaries  ; "  and 
Chandler  Bobbins,  his  successor  at  the  Second 
ch,  had  a  story  of  some  Revolutionary  vete- 
>n  his  death-bed  summoning  the  minister  for 
appropriate  consolations,  and  rising  in  his 
i  when  Emerson  showed  some  hesitation,  as 
bought,  at  handling  his  spiritual  weapons : 
ing  man,  if  you  don't  know  your  business, 
had  better  go  home."  Dr.  William  Hague, 
minister  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Han- 
Street  when  Emerson  was  at  the  Old  North, 
that  once  when  Emerson  was  to  take  part 
him  in  a  funeral  service,  the  sexton  said  that 
ile  Mr,  Emerson's  people  think  so  highly  of 
he  does  not  make  his  best  impression  at  a 
•al ;  in  fact,  he  does  not  seem  to  be  at  ease  at 
iut  rather  shy  and  retiring ;  to  tell  the  truth, 

l  Lectures  on  Human  Life,  1838. 


170  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

in  my  opinion  that  young  man  was  not  born  to  be 
a  minister." l 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  Emerson,  with  the  best 
will,  might  find  difficulty  at  such  times,  for  he  had 
no  extraordinary  share  of  that  facility  of  adapt- 
ing himself  to  an  occasion  and  taking  the  appro- 
priate tone  which  is  natural  to  many  men,  equally 
sincere,  and  forms  certainly  an  important  qualifi- 
cation for  the  sacred  office.  But  I  do  not  find  that 
any  deficiency  was  generally  felt. 

The  other  stated  duty  which  he  had  emphasized 
in  the  sermon  after  his  ordination,  the  critical 
study  and  exposition  of  the  Christian  Scriptures, 
received  due  attention  from  him.  He  continued 
the  weekly  exegetical  lectures  established  by  Mr. 
Ware,  and  I  find  among  his  papers  careful  notes 
and  discussion  of  authorities  prepared  by  him  for 
this  purpose. 

On  every  side  he  did  what  he  could  to  comply 
with  the  requisitions  of  the  place  he  had  chosen, 
yet  on  every  side  the  situation  was  a  strained  one, 
demanding  constant  efforts  to  do  something  which 
was  well  worth  doing,  no  doubt,  but  to  which  he 
did  not  always  feel  an  inward  call.  It  became 
clear  to  him  that  he  must  escape  from  it,  whatever 
the  decision  might  cost  him,  and  however  uncertain 
might  be  the  outlook. 

1  "  Life  Notes."  By  Rev.  William  Hague,  D.  D.  Watchman 
and  Reflector,  May  24,  1883. 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          171 

TO   WILLIAM   EMERSON,   ESQ.,   NEW   YORK. 

BOSTON,  November  19,  1832. 

DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  The  severing  of  our  strained 
cord  that  bound  me  to  the  church  is  a  mutual  relief. 
It  is  sorrowful  to  me  and  to  them  in  a  measure,  for 
we  were  both  suited  and  hoped  to  be  mutually  use- 
ful. But  though  it  will  occasion  me  some  (possi- 
bly much)  temporary  embarrassment,  yet  I  walk 
firmly  toward  a  peace  and  freedom  which  I  plainly 
see  before  me,  albeit  afar.  Shall  I  pester  you  with 
half  the  projects  that  sprout  and  bloom  in  my 
head,  —  of  action,  literature,  philosophy?  Am  I 
not  to  have  a  magazine  of  my  ownty-donty,  scorn- 
ing co-operation  and  taking  success  by  storm  ?  The 
vice  of  these  undertakings  in  general  is  that  they 
depend  on  many  contributors,  who  all  speak  an 
average  sense,  and  no  one  of  them  utters  his  own 
individuality.  Yet,  that  the  soul  of  a  man  should 
speak  out,  and  not  the  soul  general  of  the  town  or 
town-pump,  is  essential  to  all  eloquence.  The  ob- 
jection to  a  paper  conducted  by  one  man  is  the 
limits  of  human  strength.  The  Goethe  or  Schiller 
that  would  do  it  must  have  a  constitution  that  does 
not  belong  to  every  lean,  lily-livered  aspirant  of 
these  undigesting  days.  But  give  me  time,  give 
me  strength  and  co-operation  on  my  own  terms,  — 
KCH  rrjv  yrjv  Kivrja-w  [I  will  move  the  earth] .  Will 
we  not  sweep  the  tables  of  Athenaeums  and  the 


172  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

escritoires  of  the  learned  and  the  fair  clean  of  all 
the  American  periodical  paper,  —  green,  yellow, 
olive,  and  gray?  What  assistance  can  I  not  com- 
mand? Give  me  my  household  gods  against  the 
world,  William  and  Edward  and  Charles.  Why, 
the  plot  is  the  best  plot  that  ever  was  laid.  Wait 
and  see  what  a  few  months  shall  do  to  hatch  this 
fine  egg.  Yours  affectionately,  WALDO. 

But,  while  writing  in  this  light  tone,  he  was  in 
truth  weighed  down  by  an  accumulation  of  bur- 
dens. The  death  of  his  wife,  early  in  the  year 
before,  had  bereft  him  of  that  bright  and  buoyant 
presence,  a  perpetual  sunshine  in  his  house.  He 
had  tenderly  watched  and  cared  for  her  in  the 
steady  progress  of  her  malady ;  had  taken  her  to 
the  South  in  the  first  year  of  their  marriage,  to 
escape  the  harsh  spring  winds ;  and  was  preparing 
in  the  February  of  the  next  year  to  go  again, 
when  the  end  came,  and  overshadowed  his  life  with 
sadness.  His  diary  for  a  long  time"  is  interrupted 
by  exclamations  of  sorrow  and  bits  of  plaintive 
verse,  and  he  was  in  the  habit  (says  his  cousin, 
Dr.  Haskins),  until  his  departure  for  Europe,  of 
regularly  walking  out  in  the  early  morning  to  visit 
her  grave  in  Roxbury.1  His  mother  wrote  to  Ed- 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson ;  his  Maternal  Ancestors,  with  some 
Reminiscences  of  him.  By  David  Greene  Haskins,  D.  D.  Boston, 
1886 :  p.  45.  In  the  second  edition,  which  has  appeared  since  the 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS   CHARGE.          173 

ward  to  come  home  from  Porto  Rico  and  "take 
care  of  the  lonely  brother,"  but  that  could  not  be ; 
and  now  Charles  had  been  obliged  by  ill  health  to 
leave  his  law  studies  and  join  Edward.  They  re- 
turned together  the  next  summer  (1832)  ;  Edward 
for  a  short  visit  to  his  home,  and  he  and  "Waldo 
met  for  the  last  time.  Now  Waldo's  health  also 
broke  down  ;  the  thirtieth  year,  which  proved  fatal 
to  Edward,  and  which  Charles  did  not  quite  reach, 
was  the  critical  period  for  him  too.  Charles  writes 
to  Miss  Mary  Emerson :  — 

BOSTON,  November  26,  1832. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT,  —  Waldo  is  sick.  His  spirits 
droop ;  he  looks  to  the  South,  and  thinks  he  should 
like  to  go  away.  I  never  saw  him  so  disheartened. 
When  a  man  would  be  a  reformer,  he  wants  to  be 
strong.  When  a  man  has  stepped  out  of  the  in- 
trenchments  of  influence  and  station,  he  would 
fain  feel  his  powers  unimpaired  and  his  hope  firm. 
One  does  not  like  to  feel  that  there  is  any  doom 
upon  him  or  his  race ;  it  seems  to  quench  the 
fire  and  freedom  of  his  hopes  and  purposes.  A 
man  desires  —  't  is  his  nature  —  to  be  born  for 
action,  not  for  suffering ;  yet  what  hero  like  the 

foregoing  pages  of  this  memoir  were  in  print,  will  be  found  many 
interesting  illustrations,  among  others  portraits  of  Emerson's 
father  and  mother,  a  view  of  the  First  Church,  and  one  of  the 
house  at  Canterbury. 


174  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

unmurmuring  victim  of  wasted  or  torturing  dis- 
ease? 

December  10.  Waldo  is  meditating  a  depar- 
ture for  Italy.  He  thinks  of  sailing  in  a  vessel 
which  goes  this  week  to  Malta,  and  so  finding  his 
way  from  thence  to  Naples.  He  is  a  little  better, 
but  appears  to  need  a  setting-up,  which  a  voyage 
will  give  him.  I  was  very  loath  to  have  him  go  to 
Europe :  it  does  not  matter  much  where  such  as  he 
go,  I  suppose.  Foreign  skies  cannot  change  him  ; 
yet  it  almost  always  breaks  up  the  life  of  quiet  pro- 
gress, and  transforms  one's  ways  of  thinking  and  be- 
having. I  felt  like  you ;  I  wished  him  well ;  that  he 
might  work  out  his  way  up-hill,  and  triumph  in  the 
end  by  his  own  force  of  character.  Now,  things  seem 
flying  to  pieces,  and  I  don't  know  when  they  will 
again  be  put  together  and  he  harnessed  in  (what 
I  think  he  requires)  the  labors  of  a  daily  calling. 
So  vulgar  and  illiberal  are  my  notions.  I  do  not 
doubt  he  may  write  and  be  a  fine  thinker,  all  alone 
by  himself ;  but  I  think  he  needs  to  be  dragged 
closer  to  people  by  some  practical  vocation,  how- 
ever it  may  irk  his  tastes.  The  disappointment 
grows  upon  me  as  I  go,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  and 
hear  ordinary  preachers,  and  remember  what  a 
torch  of  kindling  eloquence  has  been  snuffed  out 
in  such  an  insignificant  fashion.  We  must  even  let 
the  bubbles  break,  be  they  what  color  they  may. 

We  break  up  housekeeping  forthwith.     Mother 


RESIGNATION  OF  HIS  CHARGE.          175 

goes   to   board,  probably  at   Newton,    with   aunt 
Ladd.     I  shall  remain  in  the  city. 

Waldo  writes  on  the  same  day  to  William :  — 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  —  My  malady  has  proved 
so  obstinate  and  comes  back  as  often  as  it  goes 
away,  that  I  am  now  bent  on  taking  Dr.  Ware's 
advice,  and  seeing  if  I  cannot  prevent  these  ruin- 
ous relapses  by  a  sea-voyage.  I  proposed  to  make 
a  modest  trip  to  the  West  Indies,  and  spend  the 
winter  with  Edward ;  but  in  a  few  hours  the  dream 
changed  into  a  purpureal  vision  of  Naples  and 
Italy,  and  that  is  the  rage  of  yesterday  and  to-day 
in  Chardon  Street.  A  vessel  sails  this  week  for 
Sicily,  and  at  this  moment  it  seems  quite  probable 
I  shall  embark  in  her.  Mr.  [Abel]  Adams  and 
mother  are  smoothing  the  way. 

He  wrote  a  letter  of  farewell l  to  his  people,  not 
being  able  to  address  them  face  to  face,  and  on 
ias_I)ay,  1832,  sailed^from  Boston  in  the 
brig  Jasper,  of  236  tons  burden, 
Mediterranean  with  a  cargo  of  West  Indian  pro- 
duce, and  landed  at  Malta  on  the  2d  of  February. 

1  Appendix  A 


CHAPTEE  V. 

EUROPE. 

1832-33. 

A  WINTER  voyage  in  a  little  trading-brig,  in 
close  quarters  and  living  on  pork  and  beans,  seems 
to  have  been  just  what  he  needed  in  this  "  solstice 
of  my  health  and  spirits."  Yet  he  did  not  like  the 
sea-life :  — 

"  A  sea-voyage  [he  writes  in  his  journal]  at 
the  best  is  yet  such  a  bundle  of  perils  and  incon- 
veniences that  no  person,  as  much  a  lover  of  the 
present  moment  as  I  am,  would  be  swift  to  pay 
that  price  for  any  commodity  which  anything  else 
could  buy." 

But  henceforth  the  "pale  train"  of  bodily  ills 
that  hitherto  had  dogged  his  footsteps  seems  in 
great  measure  shaken  off.  Here  are  some  of  his 
sea-notes :  — 

"Rose  at  sunrise,  and,  under  the  lee  of  the 
spencer,  had  a  solitary,  thoughtful  hour.  'The 
clouds  were  touched,  and  in  their  silent  faces  might 
be  read  unalterable  love.'  They  shone  with  light 
that  shines  on  Europe,  Afric,  and  the  Nile,  and  1 
opened  my  spirit's  ear  to  their  most  ancient  hymn. 


EUROPE.  177 

What,  they  said  to  me,  goest  thou  forth  so  far  to 
seek,  —  painted  canvas,  carved  marble,  renowned 
towns  ?  But  fresh  from  us,  new  evermore,  is  the 
creative  efflux  from  whence  these  works  spring. 
You  now  feel,  in  gazing  at  our  fleecy  arch  of  light, 
the  motions  that  express  themselves  in  arts.  You 
get  no  nearer  to  the  principle  in  Europe.  It  ani- 
mates man.  It  is  the  America  of  America.  It 
spans  the  ocean  like  a  hand-breadth.  It  smiles  at 
time  and  space.  Yet  welcome,  young  man  !  The 
universe  is  hospitable  ;  the  great  God  who  is  love 
hath  made  you  aware  of  the  forms  and  breeding  of 
his  wide  house.  We  greet  you  well  to  the  place  of 
history,  as  you  please  to  style  it;  to  the  mighty 
Lilliput  or  ant-hill  of  your  genealogy ;  if,  instructed 
as  you  have  been,  you  must  still  be  the  dupe  of 
shows,  and  count  it  much  the  three  or  four  bubbles 
of  foam  that  preceded  your  own  on  the  sea  of  time. 
This  strong-winged  sea-gull  and  striped  shear- 
water that  you  have  watched  as  they  skimmed  the 
waves  under  our  vault,  —  they  are  works  of  art  bet- 
ter worth  your  enthusiasm,  masterpieces  of  eternal 
power  ;  strictly  eternal,  because  now  active,  and  ye 
need  not  go  so  far  to  seek  what  ye  would  not  seek 
at  all  if  it  were  not  within  you. 

"  All  our  prosperity,  enterprise,  temper,  come 
and  go  with  the  fickle  air.  Now  we  are  all  await- 
ing a  smoother  sea  to  stand  at  our  toilette.  A 
head-wind  makes  grinning  Esaus  of  us  all.  Yet  I 


178  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

must  thank  the  sea  and  rough  weather  for  a  truck- 
man's health  and  stomach,  —  how  connected  with 
celestial  gifts !  " 

HARBOK  OF  MALTA,  February  3,  1833. 

Here  in  the  precincts  of  St.  John,  the  isle  of 
old  fame,  under  the  high  battlements,  once  of  the 
Knights  and  now  of  England,  I  spend  my  Sun- 
day, which  shines  with  but  little  Sabbath  light. 
Tout  commence,  it  is  hardly  truer  of  me  at  this 
point  of  time,  when  I  am  setting  foot  on  the  Old 
World,  and  learning  two  languages,  than  it  is  of 
every  day  of  mine,  —  so  rude  and  unready  am  I 
sent  into  this  world.  I  seem  on  all  trivial  occasions 
to  be  oppressed  with  a  universal  ignorance.  If  I 
rightly  consider  that,  for  this  point  of  time  which 
we  call  a  life,  tout  commence,  I  shall  rejoice  in  the 
omen  of  a  boundless  future,  and  not  be  chagrined. 
It  is,  however,  a  substantial  satisfaction  to  benefit 
your  companions  with  your  knowledge,  a  pleasure 
denied  me.  Perhaps  it  is  a  pernicious  mistake,  yet, 
rightly  seen,  I  believe  it 's  sound  philosophy,  that 
wherever  we  go,  whatever  we  do,  self  is  the  sole 
object  we  study  and  learn.  Montaigne  said  him- 
self was  all  he  knew.  Myself  is  much  more  than  I 
know,  and  yet  I  know  nothing  else.  The  chemist 
experiments  on  his  new  salt  by  trying  its  affinity 
to  all  the  various  substances  he  can  command,  ar- 
bitrarily selected,  and  thereby  discloses  the  most 
wonderful  properties  in  his  subject;  and  I  bring 


EUROPE.  179 

myself  to  sea,  to  Malta,  to  Italy,  to  find  new  affini- 
ties between  me  and  my  fellow-men  ;  to  observe  nar- 
rowly the  affections,  weaknesses,  surprises,  hopes, 
doubts,  which  new  sides  of  the  panorama  shall 
call  forth  in  me.  Mean,  sneakingly  mean,  would 
be  this  philosophy,  a  reptile  unworthy  of  the  name, 
if  self  were  used  in  the  low  sense  ;  but  I  speak  of 
the  universal  man,  to  whose  colossal  dimensions 
each  particular  bubble  can,  by  its  birthright,  ex- 
pand. Is  it  the  hard  condition  upon  which  the 
love  of  highest  truth  is  given,  —  such  extreme  in- 
capacity for  action  and  common  conversation  as  to 
provoke  the  contempt  of  the  by-stander,  and  even 
of  kindred  and  debtors?  Or  is  it  that  we  will 
put  off  on  our  nature  the  bad  consequence  of  our 
faults  ? 

This  is  not  in  the  vein  of  the  picturesque  tourist ; 
of  which  indeed  there  was  never  much  in  Emerson. 
He  looked  about  him  in  La  Valetta,  "  from  end 
to  end  a  box  of  curiosities,"  admired  the  Church 
of  St.  John,  and  then  crossed  to  Syracuse. 

SYRACUSE,  February  26,  1833. 

DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  As  you  so  strongly  urged 
my  visit  to  Sicily,  I  cannot  help  taking  a  spare  mo- 
ment to  date  a  letter  to  you  from  this  oldest  of 
towns.  Here  I  have  been  dwelling  now  four  days 
in  the  little  peninsula  of  Ortygia ;  with  Mt.  Etna 


180  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

visible  from  one  window,  the  pillars  of  the  Temple 
of  Jove  from  another,  and  the  Tomb  of  Archime- 
des and  the  Ear  of  Dionysius  from  the  housetop. 
I  have  drank  the  waters  of  the  fountain  Arethusa  ; 
I  have  plucked  the  papyrus  on  the  banks  of  the 
Anapus  ;  I  have  visited  the  same  catacombs  which 
Cicero  admired  for  the  prodigious  depth  and  ex- 
tent of  the  excavations  ;  I  have  heard  mass  said  in 
the  ancient  Temple  of  Minerva,  now  converted  into 
a  cathedral.  For  my  breakfast  they  give  me  most 
fragrant  Hyblaean  honey,  and  quails  (in  Ortygia) 
for  dinner.  Yet  it  is  a  poor,  gray,  shabby  place, 
the  ruin  of  ruins ;  the  earthquakes  have  shaken 
down  its  temples,  and  there  is  scarce  anything  that 
speaks  of  Hiero,  or  Timoleou,  or  Dion.  Yet  I  am 
glad  to  be  where  they  have  been,  and  to  hear  the 
bees,  and  pick  beautiful  wild  flowers  only  three  or 
four  miles  from  the  fountain  Cyane.  But  my  ig- 
norance, as  I  supposed,  is  my  perpetual  tormentor. 
I  want  my  Virgil  and  Ovid  ;  I  want  my  history 
and  my  Plutarch ;  I  want  maps  and  gazetteers. 
Were  I  fourteen  days  earlier  here  I  would  sit 
down  in  the  Capuchin  convent,  and  take  my  chance 
of  begging  or  buying  the  right  books.  It  is  more 
Roman  than  Rome.  It  is  the  playground  of  the 
gods  and  goddesses,  who  went  to  Italy  only  in  the 
progress  of  war  and  commerce. 

March  5.     Since  I  began  my  letter  I  have  come 
by  mule  from  Syracuse  to  Catania,  and  now  by  coach 


EUROPE.  181 

between  Etna  and  the  shore  hither.  From  Taor- 
mina  to  Messina,  thirty  miles,  is  the  most  pictur- 
esque country,  I  judge,  that  for  the  same  extent  is 
anywhere  to  be  found.  The  towns  are  as  the  towns 
of  goats,  every  one  on  a  precipice  ;  rich  soil,  stone 
villages,  sunny  sea-beach  lined  with  fishermen  draw- 
ing their  nets  ;  steep  mountains  of  marble  rising 
abruptly  on  the  other  side.  Here  am  I  in  Messina, 
famous  from  Sparta  downward,  yet  having  now  no 
antiquities  to  show,  as  Syracuse  and  Catania  have, 
and  no  modern  wonders  of  art,  —  only  nature  has 
been  very  kind  to  it.  ...  But  I  suppose  you  would 
know  how  these  out-courts  of  the  Old  World  impress 
the  poor  hermit  who,  with  saucer  eyes,  has  strayed 
from  his  study.  Why,  noil  so,  c'  e  la  medesima 
cosa,  same  faces  under  new  caps  and  jackets,  an- 
other turn  of  the  old  kaleidoscope.  Every  place 
you  enter  is  a  new  lottery:  chance  may  make  you 
acquainted  with  an  honest  and  kind  man  therein, 
—  then  will  that  place  disclose  its  best  things ;  or 
you  may  know  nobody,  —  then  will  go  out  of  it  ig- 
norant and  with  disagreeable  impressions. 

From  Messina  he  took  steamboat  for  Palermo, 
passing  betwixt  Scylla  and  Charybdis ;  and  from 
Palermo  to  Naples,  where,  at  the  Accademia,  he 
marks  "  the  contrast  of  the  purity,  the  severity,  ex- 
pressed in  these  fine  old  heads  with  the  frivolity 
and  sensuality  of  the  mob  that  exhibits  and  the 


182  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

mob  that  gazes  at  them.  These  are  the  counte- 
nances of  the  first-born ;  the  face  of  man  in  the 
morning  of  the  world."  But  in  general  he  seems 
most  impressed  with  the  fact  that  Italy  is  "  only 
the  same  world  of  cakes  and  ale." 

"  On  entering  this  bay  [he  writes  in  his  journal 
at  Naples],  it  is  hard  to  keep  one's  judgment  up- 
right. Baiae  and  Misenum  and  Vesuvius,  Procida 
and  Pausilippo  and  Villa  Reale,  sound  so  big  that 
we  are  ready  to  surrender  at  discretion." 

But  he  was  not  ready  to  surrender  at  discretion ; 
his  imagination  and  his  heart  were  in  Concord  and 
Boston,  and  the  sights  and  suggestions  that  un- 
rolled themselves  before  his  eyes  in  the  fresh  beauty 
of  the  Italian  spring  took  no  such  hold  upon  him  as 
to  exclude  " the  vermin  of  ciceroni  and  padroni" 
and  the  other  petty  miseries  that  beset  the  traveller. 
The  thoughts  that  really  occupied  him  found  ex- 
pression in  these  verses  in  his  journal : l  — 

...  The  all-wise  God 
Gilds  a  few  points  in  every  several  life, 
And  as  each  flower  upon  the  fresh  hill-side, 
And  every  colored  petal  of  each  flower, 
Is  sketched  and  dyed  each  with  a  new  design, 
Its  spot  of  purple  and  its  streak  of  brown, 
So  each  man's  life  shall  have  its  proper  lights ; 
And  a  few  joys,  a  few  peculiar  charms, 
For  him  round  in  the  melancholy  hours, 
And  reunite  him  to  the  common  days. 

1  Collected  Writings,  ix.  300. 


EUROPE.  183 

Not  many  men  see  beauty  in  the  fogs 

Of  close,  low  pine-woods  in  a  river  town ; 

Yet  unto  me  not  morn's  magnificence, 

Nor  the  red  rainbow  of  a  summer  eve, 

Nor  Rome,  nor  joyful  Paris,  nor  the  halls 

Of  rich  men  blazing  with  hospitable  light, 

Nor  wit,  nor  eloquence,  —  no,  nor  even  the  song 

Of  any  woman  that  is  now  alive,  — 

Hath  such  a  soul,  such  divine  influence, 

Such  resurrection  of  the  happy  past, 

As  is  to  me  when  I  behold  the  morn 

Ope  in  such  low  moist  road-side,  and  beneath 

Peep  the  blue  violets  out  of  the  black  loam ; 

Pathetic,  silent  poets  that  sing  to  me 

Thine  elegy,  sweet  singer,  sainted  wife. 

He  wrote  to  his  parishioner  and  friend,  Mr. 
George  Sampson :  — 

NAPLES,  March  23,  1833. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND,  —  How  go  the  days  and 
the  months  with  you  and  yours  ?  How  fares  the 
soul  under  the  wear  and  tear  of  vulgar  events  ? 
What  new  thoughts?  What  brighter  hope?  I 
long  to  have  a  good  talk  with  you,  which  the  roll- 
ing moons  may  soon  grant.  I  am  so  much  indebted 
to  your  manly  friendship,  specially  in  the  last  year, 
that  I  miss  my  counsellor  much,  in  this  vast  Babel 
too,  where  there  is  so  much  argument  for  conver- 
sation always  occurring.  Time,  which  brings  roses, 
will  bring  us  topics,  I  trust,  less  sombre  than  the  old 
ones.  I  have  regretted  the  vexation  they  gave  you. 
It  looks  now  to  me  as  it  always  did.  ...  I  am 


184  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

moving  about  here  in  much  noise  and  myriads  of 
people,  and  see  much  grandeur  and  much  poverty, 
but  I  am  not  very  sure  that  I  grow  much  wiser  or 
any  better  for  my  travels.  We  put  very  different 
matters  into  the  scales,  but  the  balance  never 
varies  much.  An  hour  in  Boston  and  an  hour  in 
Naples  have  about  equal  value  to  the  same  person. 
.  .  .  Still,  though  travelling  is  a  poor  profession, 
bad  food,  it  may  be  good  medicine.  It  is  good, 
like  sea-sickness,  to  break  up  a  morbid  habit,  and 
I  sometimes  fancy  it  is  a  very  wholesome  shaking 
for  me.  ...  I  am  glad  to  recognize  the  same  man 
under  a  thousand  masks,  and  hear  the  same  com- 
mandment spoken  to  me  in  Italian  I  was  wont  to 
hear  in  English.  .  .  .  My  greatest  want  is  one  that 
I  apprehended  when  at  home  :  that  I  never  meet 
with  men  that  are  great  or  interesting.  There  are 
such  everywhere,  and  here,  no  doubt,  a  just  pro- 
portion ;  but  a  traveller,  for  the  most  part,  never 
learns  their  names.  That  is  why  we  ought  not  to 
travel  too  young.  If  you  know  the  language,  your 
chance  of  acquaintance  is  very  much  increased  ;  if 
you  are  yourself  great  and  good,  why,  I  think  your 
chance  would  be  best  of  all.  ...  When  shall  I 
find  a  letter  from  you  ?  I  have  some  letters  from 
home,  but  they  say  not  a  word  of  the  Second 
Church.  Tell  me  of  it,  particularly.  But  chiefly 
tell  me  of  yourself.  I  hope  this  finds  your  wife  in 
health,  and  the  little  household  of  my  nephews. 


EUROPE.  185 

Remember  me  with  much  kindness  to  Mrs.  Samp- 
son, and  so  to  all  your  friends  and  mine.  Monday 
I  am  going  to  Rome,  and  there  and  everywhere  am 
your  affectionate,  WALDO  EMERSON. 

TO   MISS  M.    M.    EMERSON. 

ROME,  April  18,  1833. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT,  —  The  sights  and  names  of 
this  wonderful  town  remind  me  much  of  my  gifted 
correspondent,  for  the  spiritual  affinities  transcend 
the  limits  of  space,  and  a  soul  so  Roman  should 
have  its  honor  here.  How  glad  should  I  be  of  a 
letter  to  make  the  image  livelier !  .  .  .  Did  they  tell 
you  that  I  went  away  from  home  a  wasted,  peevish 
invalid?  Well,  I  have  been  mending  ever  since, 
and  am  now  in  better  health  than  I  remember  to 
have  enjoyed  since  I  was  in  college.  How  should 
one  be  sick  at  Rome?  "Here  is  matter  for  all 
feeling,"  said  Byron ;  and  yet  how  evanescent  and 
superficial  is  most  of  that  emotion  which  names  and 
places,  which  art  or  magnificence,  can  awaken !  It 
yields  in  me  to  the  interest  the  most  ordinary  com- 
panion inspires.  I  never  get  used  to  men.  They 
always  awaken  expectations  in  me  which  they  al- 
ways disappoint,  and  I  am  a  poor  asteroid  in  the 
great  system,  subject  to  disturbances  in  my  orbit, 
not  only  from  all  the  planets,  but  from  all  their 
moons.  The  wise  man,  the  true  friend,  the  finished 
character,  we  seek  everywhere,  and  only  find  in  frag- 


186  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

merits.  Yet  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  all  the 
beautiful  souls  are  fled  out  of  the  planet,  or  that 
always  I  shall  be  excluded  from  good  company  and 
yoked  with  green,  dull,  pitiful  persons.  After  being 
cabined  up,  by  sea  and  by  land,  since  I  left  home, 
with  various  little  people,  all  better,  to  be  sure,  and 
much  wiser  than  I,  but  still  such  as  did  not  help 
me,  I  cannot  tell  you  how  refreshing  it  was  to  fall 
in  with  two  or  three  sensible  persons  with  whom  I 
could  eat  my  bread  and  take  my  walk,  and  feel  my- 
self a  freeman,  once  more,  of  God's  universe.  Yet 
were  these  last  not  instructors,  and  I  want  instruc- 
tors. God's  greatest  gift  is  a  teacher ;  and  when 
will  He  send  me  one  full  of  truth  and  of  boundless 
benevolence  and  heroic  sentiments  ?  I  can  describe 
the  man,  and  have,  already,  in  prose  and  verse.  I 
know  the  idea  well,  but  where  is  its  real  blood-warm 
counterpart  ?  I  know,  whilst  I  write  this,  that  the 
creature  is  never  to  dawn  upon  me  like  a  sun-burst ; 
I  know  too  well  how  slowly  we  edge  along  sideways 
to  everything  good  and  brilliant  in  our  lives,  and 
how  casually  and  unobservedly  we  make  all  our 
most  valued  acquaintances.  And  yet  I  saw  Ellen 
at  once,  in  all  her  beauty ;  and  she  never  disap- 
pointed me  except  in  her  death.  And  why  may 
not  the  master  which  the  soul  anticipates  so  ap- 
pear ?  You  are  so  far  off  that  I  shall  scarce  get 
your  answers  very  soon ;  so  I  may  as  well  set  down 
what  our  stern  experience  replies  with  the  tongue 


EUROPE.  187 

of  all  its  days.  "  Son  of  man,"  it  saith,  "  all  giving 
and  receiving  is  reciprocal;  you  entertain  angels 
unawares,  but  they  cannot  impart  more  or  higher 
things  than  you  are  in  a  state  to  receive.  But 
every  step  of  your  progress  affects  the  intercourse 
you  hold  with  all  others,  elevates  its  tone,  deepens 
its  meaning,  sanctifies  its  spirit ;  and  when  time 
and  suffering  and  self-denial  shall  have  transfigured 
and  glorified  this  spotted  self,  you  shall  find  your 
fellows  also  transformed,  and  their  faces  shall  shine 
upon  you  with  the  light  of  wisdom  and  the  beauty 
of  holiness."  You  who  cling  with  both  hands  to 
the  literal  Word  and  to  venerable  traditions  will 
find  in  my  complaints  a  confession  and  a  self-accu- 
sation, no  doubt.  You  will  say  I  do  not  receive 
what  Heaven  gives.  But  you  must  not  say  any 
such  thing.  For  I  am,  you  see,  speaking  truly  as 
to  my  Master.  That  excellent  Teacher  whom  he 
sent,  who  has  done  so  much  to  raise  and  comfort 
human  life,  and  who  prized  sincerity  more  than 
sacrifice,  cannot  exist  to  me  as  he  did  to  John. 
My  brothers,  my  mother,  my  companions,  must  be 
much  more  to  me  in  all  respects  of  friendship  than 
he  can  be.  .  .  .  Let  me,  dear  aunt,  find  a  letter 
from  you  in  Paris,  and  believe  me  most  affection- 
ately your  nephew,  WALDO. 

At  Rome  he  went  with  docile  mind  to  look  at 
the  famous  views,  the  statues  and  the  pictures,  the 


188  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

antiquities  and  the  churches,  and  was  always  ready 
to  admire  what  is  admirable.  One  or  two  pictures 
remained  in  his  memory,  —  Raphael's  Transfigura- 
tion, Andrea  Sacchi's  Vision  of  St.  Romuald ;  and 
some  of  the  churches  struck  him,  particularly  St. 
Peter's.  He  was  sorry,  he  said,  to  think  that  after 
a  few  days  he  should  see  it  no  more.  Throughout 
his  Italian  journal  the  churches  are  prominent :  St. 
John's  at  Malta  is  "  a  noble  house  to  worship  God 
in ; "  and  of  the  churches  in  Sicily  and  at  Naples 
he  writes,  "  I  yielded  me  joyfully  to  the  religious 
impression  of  holy  texts  and  fine  paintings  and 
this  soothfast  faith,  though  of  women  and  children. 
Who  can  imagine  the  effect  of  a  true  and  worthy 
form  of  worship  in  these  godly  piles  ?  I  do  not 
mean  the  common  Protestant  service,  but  what  it 
should  be  if  all  were  actual  worshippers.  It  would 
have  something  of  this  '  Catholic '  ceremony,  too ; 
and  yet  not  show  a  priest  trotting  hither  and  thith- 
er, and  bowing  now  on  this  side  and  now  on  that. 
Why  not  devise  ceremonies  that  shall  be  in  as 
good  and  manly  taste  as  their  churches  and  pictures 
and  music?  How  beautiful  to  have  the  church 
always  open,  so  that  every  tired  wayfaring  man 
may  come  in  and  be  soothed  by  all  that  art  can 
suggest  of  a  better  world,  when  he  is  weary  with 
this !  I  hope  they  will  carve  and  paint  and  inscribe 
the  walls  of  our  churches  in  New  England,  before 
this  century,  which  will  probably  see  many  grand 


EUROPE.  189 

granite  piles  erected  there,  is  closed.  Have  the  men 
of  America  never  entered  these  European  churches, 
that  they  build  such  mean  edifices  at  home  ?  Art 
was  born  in  Europe,  and  will  not  cross  the  ocean,  I 
fear." 

But  he  rarely  sees  anything  that  he  had  not  ex- 
pected, and  he  passes  without  notice  where  we 
might  expect  him  to  stop  and  admire.  When  we 
remember  that  the  Coliseum  and  the  Baths  must 
have  then  been  in  much  the  same  state  as  when 
Shelley  saw  them,  fourteen  years  before,  it  seems 
strange  that  the  sublime  and  lovely  desolation 
Shelley  describes  in  his  letters  should  not  have 
struck  a  poetical  young  American  who  had  never 
seen  a  ruin  or  a  laurestinus  in  his  life.  But  he 
was  upon  another  quest.  "  Ah,  great  Eome!  It  is 
a  majestic  city,  and  satisfied  the  craving  imagina- 
tion. And  yet  I  would  give  all  Rome  for  one  man 
such  as  were  fit  to  walk  here,  and  could  feel  and 
impart  the  sentiment  of  the  place.  Yet  I  have 
found  several  pleasant  and  one  valuable  companion. 
I  have  found  here,  too,  a  friend  of  Carlyle  in  Ed- 
inburgh [M.  Gustave  d'Eichthal],  who  has  given 
me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  him." 

On  the  23d  of  April  he  left  Rome,  and  jour- 
neyed northward  to  Florence  ;  admired  the  Duomo, 
"  set  down  like  an  archangel's  tent  in  the  midst  of 
the  city,"  and  Santa  Croce,  —  or  "  the  tombs  with 
which  it  is  floored  and  lined ; "  saw  the  far-famed 


190  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Venus  and  found  her  worthy  of  her  fame ;  and  dined 
and  breakfasted  with  Mr.  Landor,  "  who  [he  writes 
to  his  brother  Charles]  does  not  quite  show  the  same 
calibre  in  conversation  as  in  his  books.  It  is  a  mean 
thing  that  literary  men,  philosophers,  cannot  work 
themselves  clear  of  this  ambition  to  appear  men  of 
the  world.  As  if  every  dandy  did  not  understand 
his  business  better  than  they.  I  hope  better  things 
of  Carlyle,  who  has  lashed  the  same  folly." 

From  Florence  he  went  by  vettura  with  some 
American  acquaintances  through  Bologna  and  Fer- 
rara,  and  reached  Venice  on  the  first  of  June. 
The  famous  city,  as  he  approached  it  by  boat, 
"  looked  for  some  time  like  nothing  but  New  York. 
It  is  a  great  oddity,  a  city  for  beavers,  but,  to  my 
thought,  a  most  disagreeable  residence.  You  feel 
always  in  prison  and  solitary.  It  is  as  if  you  were 
always  at  sea.  I  soon  had  enough  of  it." 

Thence  to  Milan,  and  over  the  Simplon  to  Ge- 
neva, —  where,  "  to  oblige  my  companions,  and  pro- 
testing all  the  way  upon  the  unworthiness  of  his 
memory,  I  went  to  Ferney;  to  the  chateau,  the 
saloon,  the  bed-chamber,  the  garden,  of  Voltaire, 
the  king  of  the  scorners,"  —  and  reached  Paris  on 
the  20th  of  June. 

Here  his  companions,  "who  have  been  in  la 
belle  ville  before,  and  wished  it  to  strike  me  as  it 
ought,  are  scarce  content  with  my  qualified  admi- 
ration. But  I  am  not  well  pleased.  I  was  sorry 


EUROPE.  191 

to  find  that  in  leaving  Italy  I  had  left  forever 
that  air  of  antiquity  and  history  which  her  towns 
possess,  and  in  coming  hither  had  come  to  a  loud 
modern  New  York  of  a  place.  Yet  it  were  very 
ungrateful  in  a  stranger  to  be  discontented  with 
Paris,  for  it  is  the  most  hospitable  of  cities.  The 
foreigner  has  only  to  present  his  passport  at  any 
public  institution  and  the  doors  are  thrown  wide 
to  him."  He  went  to  the  Sorbonne,  and  heard 
Jouffroy,  Thenard,  Gay  Lussac;  to  the  Louvre 
and  to  the  Jardin  des  Plantes :  — 

"  How  much  finer  things  are  in  composition  than 
alone !  The  universe  is  a  more  amazing  puzzle 
than  ever,  as  you  glance  along  this  bewildering 
series  of  animated  forms ;  the  upheaving  principle 
of  life  everywhere  incipient  in  the  very  rock,  aping 
organized  forms.  Not  a  form  so  grotesque,  so  sav- 
age, or  so  beautiful  but  it  is  an  expression  of  some 
property  inherent  in  man  the  observer,  —  an  occult 
relation  between  the  very  scorpions  and  man." 

He  saw  Mme.  Mars  in  "  Delavigne's  new  piece, 
*  Les  Enfans  d'Edouard ; '  excellently  performed. 
She  scarcely  excels  the  acting  of  the  less  famous 
persons  who  support  her.  Each  was  perfect  in 
his  part." 

"July  4.  Dined  at  Lourlier's  with  General 
Lafayette  and  nearly  one  hundred  Americans.  I 
sought  an  opportunity  of  paying  my  respects  to 
the  hero,  inquiring  after  his  health.  His  speech 


192  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

was  happy  as  usual.    A  certain  Lieutenant did 

what  he  could  to  mar  the  day." 

"  It  shall  be  writ  in  my  memoirs  (as  aunt  Mary 
would  say)  as  it  was  writ  of  St.  Pachomius :  Pet, 
ejus  ad  saltandum  non  est  commotus  omni  vita 
sua.  The  worse  for  me  in  the  gay  city.  Pray  what 
brought  you  here,  grave  sir  ?  the  moving  Boulevard 


PABIS,  June  29,  1833. 

DEAR  WILLIAM:  .  .  .  For  libraries  and  lec- 
tures, my  own  library  has  hitherto  always  been  too 
large,  and  a  lecture  at  the  Sorbonne  is  far  less  use- 
ful to  me  than  a  lecture  that  I  write  myself.  Then, 
for  literary  society  and  all  that,  —  true,  it  would  be 
inestimable  if  I  could  get  at  it.  Probably  in  years 
it  would  avail  me  nothing.  My  own  study  is  the 
best  place  for  me,  and  there  was  always  more  fine  so- 
ciety in  my  own  little  town  than  I  could  command. 
So,  /Si  le  roi  m'avoit  donne  Paris  sa  grand?  ville, 
Je  dirois  au  roi  Louis  je  prefere  my  inkstand.1 

(Journal.)  "  How  does  everybody  live  on  the 
outside  of  the  world !  All  young  persons  thirst  for 
a  real  existence,  for  an  object,  for  something  great 
and  good  which  they  shall  do  with  all  their  heart. 
A  man  who  was  no  courtier,  but  loved  men,  went  to 
Rome,  and  there  lived  with  boys.  He  came  to 

1  This  song,  from  Moliere's  Misanthrope  (Acte  I.  Sc.  ii. ),  Emer« 
eon  said  was  Hie  best  poem  in  the  French  language. 


EUROPE.  193 

France,  and  in  Paris  lives  alone,  and  in  Paris 
seldom  speaks.  If  he  do  not  see  Carlyle  in  Edin- 
burgh, he  may  go  back  to  America  without  say- 
ing anything  in  earnest,  except  to  Cranch  and 
Landor." 

Carlyle's  articles  in  the  English  reviews  hacl 
much  impressed  him,  and  a  wish  to  see  the  writer 
of  them  had  contributed  much  to  shape  his  course 
towards  Europe.  He  writes  in  his  journal,  the 
year  before :  — 

"  I  am  cheered  and  instructed  by  this  paper  on 
'Corn  Law  Rhymes,'  in  the  Edinburgh,  by  my 
Germanic  new-light  writer,  whoever  he  be.  He 
gives  us  confidence  in  our  principles.  He  assures 
the  truth-lover  everywhere  of  sympathy.  Blessed 
art  that  makes  books,  and  so  joins  me  to  that 
stranger  by  this  perfect  railroad !  " 

Before  leaving  home  he  had  learned  the  name  of 
his  unknown,  and  in  Rome  he  received  from  Mr. 
D'Eichthal  a  letter  of  introduction  to  him,  which 
he  was  expecting  to  deliver. 

"  Sunday,  July  21.  Arrived  in  London,  and 
landed  at  the  Tower  Stairs.  Took  lodgings  imme- 
diately at  Mrs.  Fowler's,  63  Russell  Square.  Went 
into  St.  Paul's,  where  service  was  saying.  Poor 
church." 

He  stayed  in  London  about  three  weeks ;  visited 
Coleridge,  as  he  has  related  in  "  English  Traits," 
and  saw  a  few  other  persons,  among  them  Dr, 


194  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

Bowriiig,  who  took  him  to  see  Bentham's  house, 
and  made  him  remark  that  there  were  but  two 
chairs  in  the  apartment  where  he  received  his 
guests,  as  it  was  his  invariable  rule  to  receive  but  one 
at  a  time,  —  a  rule  which  seemed  to  Emerson  worthy 
of  universal  adoption  by  men  of  letters.  Also 
John  Stuart  Mill,  who  gave  him  a  card  (which, 
however,  he  never  delivered)  introducing  him  to 
Carlyle. 

LONDON,  July  31,  1833. 

DEAR  WILLIAM:  ...  I  am  sorry  I  did  not 
write  a  good  letter  to  Susan.  I  am  afraid  I  tried 
too  hard.  Tell  her  to  have  patience  with  me,  for 
when  I  was  young  I  thought  I  wrote  excellently, 
and  I  hope  to  have  occasion  to  write  to  her  many 
and  many  a  time.  ...  I  have  been  to  see  Dr. 
Bowring,  who  was  very  courteous.  He  carried  me 
to  Bentham's  house,  and  showed  me  with  great 
veneration  the  garden-walk,  the  sitting-room,  and 
the  bed-chamber  of  the  philosopher.  He  gave  me 
also  a  lock  of  the  gray  hair  and  an  autograph  of 
the  utilitarian.  ...  I  walked  in  the  garden,  on 
one  side  of  which  is  the  house  where  Milton 
lived  when  he  was  Cromwell's  secretary. 

At  Edinburgh  he  did  not  find  Carlyle,  and  had, 
says  Mr.  Alexander  Ireland,1  great  difficulty  in  dis- 

1  Salph  Waldo  Emerson.  A  Biographical  Sketch.  By  Alexan- 
der  Ireland.  London,  1882  :  p.  147. 


EUROPE.  195 

covering  his  whereabouts,  which  he  at  length  ascer- 
tained from  the  secretary  at  the  University.  He 
preached  in  Edinburgh,  Mr.  Ireland  tells  us,  with 
great  acceptance,  at  the  Unitarian  chapel;  and  a 
week  later,  having  meantime  made  a  little  tour 
towards  the  Highlands,  —  spoiled  by  constant  rain, 
"  since  the  scenery  of  a  shower-bath  must  always 
be  much  the  same,"  —  drove  across  from  Dumfries 
to  Craigenputtock,  where  Carlyle  had  been  living 
for  the  last  five  years,  and  spent  the  afternoon  and 
night  there.  He  writes  next  day  in  his  journal :  — 
"  Carlisle  in  Cumberland,  August  26.  I  am 
just  arrived  in  merry  Carlisle,  from  Dumfries.  A 
white  day  in  my  years.  I  found  the  youth  I 
sought  in  Scotland, —  and  good  and  wise  and  pleas- 
ant he  seems  to  me,  and  his  wife  a  most  accom- 
plished, agreeable  woman.  Truth  and  peace  and 
faith  dwell  with  them  and  beautify  them.  I  never 
saw  more  amiableness  than  is  in  his  countenance. 
T.  C.  has  made  up  his  mind  to  pay  his  taxes  to  Wil- 
liam and  Adelaide  Gruelf,  with  great  cheerfulness, 
as  long  as  William  is  able  to  compel  the  payment, 
and  shall  cease  to  do  so  the  moment  he  ceases  to 
compel  them.  T.  C.  prefers  London  to  any  other 
place  to  live  in.  John  S.  Mill  the  best  mind 
he  knows ;  more  purity,  more  force ;  has  worked 
himself  clear  from  Benthamism.  His  only  com- 
panion to  speak  to  was  the  minister  of  Dunscore 
kirk.  And  he  used  to  go  sometimes  to  the  kirk,  and 


196  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

envy  the  poor  parishioners  their  good  faith.  But 
he  seldom  went,  and  the  minister  had  grown  suspi- 
cious of  them  and  did  not  come  to  see  him." 


Carlyle  was  gratified  at  Emerson's  coming  so 
far  to  see  him,  and  showed  himself  at  his  best. 
An  affectionate  regard  sprung  up  at  once  between 
them  which  never  ceased  during  their  lives.  The 
mutual  attraction  was  jip  doubt^  to  some  extent 
the  attraction  of  opposites.  Neither  cared  much 
for  the  otherV-ideas ;  to  each,  indeed,  the  lead- 
ing idea  of  the  other,  the  message  he  wished  to 
bear  to  his  generation,  was  a  delusion.  Had  they 
been  required  respectively  to  define  by  a  single 
trait  the  farthest  reach  of  folly  in  a  theory  of  con- 
duct, Carlyle  would  have  selected  the  notion  that 
mankind  need  only  to  be  set  free  and  led  to  think 
and  act  for  themselves,  and  Emerson  the  doctrine 
ftha.t  they  Tiftgd  pnly  f.n  Vtft  wflll  jraverngfl. 

The  divergence  would  not  show  itself  at  once, 
yet  it  must  have  been  felt  on  both  sides.  But  it 
never  made  much  difference  in  their  regard  for 
each  other.  Each  was  well  assured  that  the  other 
at  bottom  wished  for  nothing  else  than  truth  and 
justice,  and  each  felt  that  his  friend  had  something 
which  was  lacking  in  himself.  Emerson  admired 
the  abundance  and  superabundance  of  talent  and 
personal  force  with  which  Carlyle  could  give  effect 
to  his  views;  and  Carlyle,  though  he  doubtless 


EUROPE.  197 

looked  upon  Emerson  as  a  well-meaning  young 
Unitarian  parson  (a  kind,  he  says,  he  had  "  long 
known,  intus  et  in  cute,  and  never  got  any  good  of 
them,  or  any  ill  "),*  could  not  help  enjoying  the  at- 
mosphere of  peace  and  serenity  that  Emerson  dif- 
fused about  him  ;  nor,  however  he  might  despise 
the  obstinate  disposition  to  see  nothing  but  "  the 
divine  effort  "  in  every  form  of  man,  help  loving 
the  "  enthusiast "  who  would  always  take  him  at 
his  best. 

"  That  man  [Carlyle  said  to  Lord  Houghton] 
came  to  see  me,  I  don't  know  what  brought  him, 
and  we  kept  him  one  night,  and  then  he  left  us. 
I  saw  him  go  up  the  hill ;  I  did  n't  go  with  him  to 
see  him  descend.  I  preferred  to  watch  him  mount 
and  vanish  like  an  angel." 

To  Emerson  the  interview  was  a  happy  one,  and 
gratified  the  chief  wish  he  had  in  coming  to  Eng- 
land; though  he  did  not  find  all  that  he  sought. 
He  had  been  looking  for  a  master  ;  but  in  the  deep- 
est matters  Carlyle,  he  found,  had  nothing  to  teach 
him.  "  My  own  feeling  [he  says  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Ireland  a  few  days  afterwards]  was  that  I  had 
met  with  men  of  far  less  power  who  had  got  greater 
insight  into  religious  truth."  But  he  had  come 
close  to  the  affectionate  nature  and  the  nobility  of 
soul  that  lay  behind  the  cloud  of  whim  and  dys- 

1  Thomas  Carlyle :  A  History  of  the  First  Forty  Tears  of  his 
Life.  By  J.  A.  Froude.  New  York,  1884 :  ii.  187. 


198  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

pepsia,  and  he  kept  to  that ;  and,  for  the  rest,  con- 
fined his  expectations  thenceforth  to  what  Carlyle 
/  had  to  give.  "  The  greatest  power  of  Carlyle 
[he  afterwards  wrote] ,  like  that  of  Burke,  seems  to 
me  to  reside  rather  in  the  form.  Neither  of  them 
\  is  a  poet,  born  to  announce  the  will  of  the  god,  but 
\  each  has  a  splendid  rhetoric  to  clothe  the  truth." 

On  his  way  to  Liverpool  he_stqpped  at  Rydal 
Mount,  and  paid  his  respects  to  Wordsworth. 
"  The  poet  [he  writes  in  his  journal]  is  ever 
young ;  this  old  man,  whilst  he  recollected  the  son- 
net he  would  recite,  took  the  same  attitude  that  he 
probably  had  at  seventeen.  His  egotism  was  not 
at  all  displeasing,  obtrusive,  as  I  had  heard.  To 
be  sure,  it  met  no  rock.  I  spoke,  as  I  felt,  with 
great  respect  of  his  genius." 

Except  this,  I  find  nothing  in  the  journals  be- 
yond what  he  has  given  in  his  account  of  the  inter- 
view in  "  English  Traits." 

( Journal. )  "  Liverpool,  September  1,  1833.  I 
thank  the  great  God  who  has  led  me  through  this 
European  scene  —  this  last  school-room  in  which 
He  has  pleased  to  instruct  me  — in  safety  and  pleas- 
ure, and  has  now  brought  me  to  the  shore,  and  to 
the  ship  that  steers  westward.  He  has  shown  me 
the  men  I  wished  to  see,  Landor,  Coleridge,  Car- 
lyle, Wordsworth  ;  He  has  thereby  comforted  and 
confirmed  me  in  my  convictions.  Many  things  I 
^  owe  to  the  sight  of  these  men.  I  shall  judge  more 


EUROPE.  199 

justly,  less  timidly,  of  wise  men  forevermore.  To 
be  sure,  not  one  of  these  is  a  mind  of  the  very  first 
class ;  but  what  the  intercourse  with  each  of  them 
suggests  is  true  of  intercourse  with  better  men,  — 
that  they  never  fill  the  ear,  fill  the  mind ;  no,  it  is 
an  idealized  portrait  which  always  we  draw  of 
them.  Upon  an  intelligent  man,  wholly  a  stranger 
to  their  names,  they  would  make  in  conversation 
no  deep  impression,  —  none  of  a  world-filling  fame. 
They  would  be  remembered  as  sensible,  well-read, 
earnest  men;  not  more.  Especially  are  they  all 
deficient  —  all  these  four,  in  different  degrees,  but 
all  deficient  —  in  insight  into  religious  truth.  They 
have  no  idea  of  that  species  of  moral  truth  which 
I  call  the  first  philosophy.  The  comfort  of  meet- 
ing men  of  genius  such  as  these  is  that  they  talk 
sincerely.  They  feel  themselves  to  be  so  rich  that 
they  are  above  the  meanness  of  pretension  to 
knowledge  which  they  have  not,  and  they  frankly 
tell  you  what  puzzles  them.  But  Carlyle,  Carlyle 
is  so  amiable  that  I  love  him.  But  I  am  very  glad 
my  travelling  is  done :  a  man  not  old  feels  himself 
too  old  to  be  a  vagabond.  The  people  at  their 
work,  the  people  whose  vocations  I  interrupt  by  my 
letters  of  introduction,  accuse  me  by  their  looks  for 
leaving  my  business  to  hinder  theirs.  These  men 
make  you  feel  that  fame  is  a  conventional  thing, 
and  that  man  is  a  sadly  *  limitary '  spirit.  You 
speak  to  them  as  to  children,  or  persons  of  inferior 


200  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

capacity,  whom  it  is  necessary  to  humor ;  adapting 
our  tone  and  remarks  to  their  known  prejudices, 
and  not  to  our  knowledge  of  the  truth.  I  believe 
in  my  heart  it  is  better  to  admire  too  rashly,  as  I 
do,  than  to  be  admired  too  rashly,  as  the  great 
men  of  this  day  are.  They  miss,  by  their  prema- 
ture canonization,  a  great  deal  of  necessary  know- 
ledge, and  one  of  these  days  must  begin  the  world 
again  (as  to  their  surprise  they  will  find  needful) 
poor.  I  speak  now  in  general,  and  not  of  these  in- 
dividuals." 

At  Liverpool  there  was  a  tedious  delay  of  some 
days,  the  weather  being  too  stormy  to  allow  the 
sailing  of  the  ship.  Emerson  sighed  for  Carlyle 
to  help  him  pass  away  the  time :  "  Ah  me,  Mr. 
Thomas  Carlyle,  I  would  give  a  gold  pound  for 
your  wise  company  this  gloomy  evening."  At  the 
hotel  he  fell  in  with  Jacob  Perkins,  the  inventor, 
who  enlightened  him  upon  the  science  of  heat. 
With  him  he  went  to  the  railroad  and  saw  "  Rocket 
and  Goliath  and  Pluto  and  Firefly  and  the  rest  of 
that  vulcanian  generation.  Mr.  Perkins  says  they 
should  not  go  faster  than  fifteen  miles  the  hour ;  it 
racks  the  engine  to  go  faster.  He  says  that  he 
confidently  expects  the  time  will  come  when  the 
ocean  will  be  navigated  by  merchantmen  by  steam, 
as  the  most  economical  means,  but  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  done  first." 

(At  sea.)  "  Sunday,  September  8, 1833.   I  wrote 


EUROPE.  201 

above  my  conviction  that  the  great  men  of  Eng- 
land are  singularly  ignorant  of  religion.  They 
should  read  Norton's  preface  to  his  new  book,1  who 
has  stated  that  fact  well.  Carlyle  almost  grudges 
the  poor  peasant  his  Calvinism.  Must  I  not  admit 
in  the  same  moment  that  I  have  practical  difficul- 
ties myself?  I  see  or  believe  in  the  wholesome- 
ness  of  Calvinism  for  thousands  and  thousands  ;  I 
would  encourage,  or  rather  I  would  not  discourage, 
their  scrupulous  religious  observances.  I  dare  not 
speak  lightly  of  usages  I  omit.  And  so,  with  this 
hollow  obeisance  to  things  I  do  not  myself  value,  I 
go  on,  not  pestering  others  with  what  I  do  [not] 
believe,  and  so  I  am  open  to  the  name  of  a  very 
poor  speculator,  a  faint,  heartless  supporter  of  a 
frigid  and  empty  theism ;  a  man  of  no  vigor  of 
manners,  of  no  vigor  of  benevolence.  Ah  me! 
what  hope  of  reform,  what  hope  of  communicating 
religious  light  to  benighted  Europe,  if  they  who 
have  what  they  call  the  light  are  so  selfish  and 
timid  and  cold,  and  their  faith  so  unpractical,  and, 
in  their  judgment,  so  unsuitable  for  the  middling 
classes  ?  I  know  not,  I  have  no  call  to  expound  ; 
but  this  is  my  charge,  plain  and  clear,  to  act  faith- 
fully upon  my  own  faith  ;  to  live  by  it  myself,  and 
see  what  a  hearty  obedience  to  it  will  do. 

"  I  believe  that  the  error  of  religionists  lies  in 

1  Statement  of  Seasons  far  not  Believing  the  Doctrines  of  Trini- 
tarians,    By  Andrews  Norton.     Cambridge,  1833. 


202  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

this :  that  they  do  not  know  the  extent,  or  the  har- 
mony, or  the  depth  of  their  moral  nature  ;  that 
they  are  clinging  to  little  positive  verbal  formal 
versions  of  the  moral  law,  —  and  very  imperfect 
versions  too,  —  while  the  infinite  laws,  the  great 
circling  truths  whose  only  adequate  symbol  is  the 
material  laws,  the  astronomy,  etc.,  are  all  unob- 
served, and  sneered  at,  when  spoken  of,  as  frigid 
and  insufficient.  I  call  Calvinism  such  an  imper- 
fect version  of  the  moral  law.  Unitarianism  is  an- 
other, and  every  form  of  Christian  and  of  Pagan 
faith  in  the  hands  of  incapable  teachers.  On  the 
contrary,  in  the  hands  of  a  true  teacher,  the  false- 
hoods, the  pitifulnesses,  the  sectarianisms  of  each 
are  dropped,  and  the  sublimity  and  depth  of  the 
original  penetrated  and  exhibited  to  men.  I  say 
also  that  all  that  recommends  each  of  these  estab- 
lished systems  of  opinion  to  men  is  so  much  of  this 
moral  truth  as  is  in  them,  and,  by  the  instinctive 
selection  of  the  preacher,  is  made  to  shine  forth 
when  the  system  is  assailed.  But  the  men  of 
Europe  will  say,  '  Expound  :  let  us  hear  what  it  is 
that  is  to  convince  the  faithful  and  at  the  same 
time  the  philosopher.  Let  us  hear  this  new  thing ! ' 
It  is  very  old.  It  is  the  old  revelation  that  perfect 
beauty  is  perfect  goodness ;  it  is  the  development 
of  the  wonderful  congruities  of  the  moral  law  of 
human  nature.  A  man  contains  all  that  is  needful 
to  his  government  within  himself.  He  is  made  a 


EUROPE.  203 

law  unto  himself.  All  real  good  or  evil  that  can 
befall  him  must  be  from  himself.  He  only  can  do 
himself  any  good  or  any  harm.  Nothing  can  be 
given  to  him  or  taken  from  him,  but  always  there  's 
a  compensation.  There  is  a  correspondence  be- 
tween the  human  soul  and  everything  that  exists 
in  the  world;  more  properly,  everything  that  is 
known  to  man.  Instead  of  studying  things  with- 
out, the  principles  of  them  all  may  be  penetrated 
unto  within  him.  Every  act  puts  the  agent  in  a 
new  condition.  The  purpose  of  life  seems  to  be  to 
acquaint  man  with  himself.  He  is  not  to  live  to 
the  future  as  described  to  him,  but  to  live  to  the 
real  future  by  living  to  the  real  present.  The  high- 
est revelation  is  that  God  is  in  every  man.  Mil- 
ton describes  himself  in  his  letter  to  Diodati  as 
enamored  of  moral  perfection.  He  did  not  love 
it  more  than  I.  That  which  I  cannot  yet  declare 
has  been  my  angel  from  childhood  until  now.  It 
has  separated  me  from  men.  It  has  watered  my 
pillow.  It  has  driven  sleep  from  my  bed.  It  has 
tortured  me  for  my  guilt.  It  has  inspired  me  with 
hope.  It  cannot  be  defeated  by  my  defeats.  It 
cannot  be  questioned,  though  all  the  martyrs  apos- 
tatize. It  is  always  the  glory  that  shall  be  re- 
vealed ;  it  is  the  '  open  secret '  of  the  universe. 
And  it  is  only  the  feebleness  and  dust  of  the  ob- 
server that  makes  it  future  ;  the  whole  is  now  po- 
tentially at  the  bottom  of  his  heart.  Is  it  not  a 


204  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

sufficient  reply  to  the  red  and  angry  worldling, 
coloring  as  he  affirms  his  unbelief,  to  say,  Think 
on  living !  I  have  to  do  no  more  than  you  with 
that  question  of  another  life.  I  believe  in  this  life. 
I  believe  it  continues.  As  long  as  I  am  here,  I 
plainly  read  my  duties  as  writ  with  pencil  of  fire. 
They  speak  not  of  death ;  they  are  woven  of  im- 
mortal thread. 

"  Men  seem  to  be  constitutionally  believers  and 
unbelievers.  There  is  no  bridge  that  can  cross 
from  a  mind  in  one  state  to  a  mind  in  the  other. 
All  my  opinions,  affections,  whimsies,  are  tinged 
with  belief,  —  incline  to  that  side.  But  I  cannot 
give  reasons  to  a  person  of  a  different  persuasion 
that  are  at  all  adequate  to  the  force  of  my  convic- 
tion. Yet  when  I  fail  to  find  the  reason,  my  faith 
is  not  less.  Unpalatable  must  be  always  the  argu- 
ment based  upon  the  text,  '  If  ye  do  my  Father's 
will,  ye  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,'  and  almost 
incapable  of  being  used  in  conversation.  It  is  felt 
as  a  gross  personality.  Yet  it  is  a  good  topic  for 
the  preacher,  and  a  better  topic  for  the  closet." 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

RETURN  HOME. —  THOUGHTS  OF  REFORM  IN  RE- 
LIGIOUS TEACHING.  —  DEATH  OF  HIS  BROTHER 
EDWARD.  —  FIRST  LECTURES. — SETTLES  IN  CON- 
CORD. 

1833-1836. 

EMERSON  sailed  from  Liverpool  September  4th, 
arrived  in  Xew  York  October  9th,  and  soon  after- 
wards rejoined  his  mother  at  Newton,  near  Boston, 
half  a  mile  from  the  Upper  Falls  of  Charles  River, 
where  she  had  been  living  during  his  absence ;  a 
pleasant  farming  country  with  scattered  woodlands, 
where  he  renewed  the  solitary  rambles  he  had 
learned  to  love  at  Canterbury.  He  at  once  re- 
turned to  his  preaching,  and  he  began  also  to  lec- 
ture. 

TO  MR.    GEORGE   A.    SAMPSON,    BOSTON. 

Why  have  you  not  been  out  here  to  see  the  pines 
and  the  hermit  ?  ...  It  is  calm  as  eternity,  and 
will  give  you  lively  ideas  of  the  same.  These 
sleepy  hollows,  full  of  savins  and  cinquefoil,  seem 
to  utter  a  quiet  satire  at  the  ways  and  politics  of 
men.  I  think  the  robin  and  finch  the  only  phi- 
losophers. I  listen  attentively  to  all  they  say,  and 


206  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

account  the  whole  spectacle  of  the  day  a  new 
speech  of  God  to  me ;  though  He  speaks  not  less 
from  the  wharf  and  the  market.  Few  men  are 
listeners,  but  there  are  more  there  than  here.  I 
went  to  Waltham  to-day,  and  preached  to  deaf  and 
hearing ;  next  Sunday  I  go  to  Watertown,  and  the 
following  to  Fall  River  ;  so  you  must  come  out  here 
in  the  week  ;  and  't  is  deep  Sunday  in  this  wood- 
cocks' nest  of  ours  from  one  end  of  the  week  to 
the  other  ;  times  and  seasons  get  lost  here,  sun  and 
stars  make  all  the  difference  of  night  and  day. 
There  is  a  walk  through  the  woods  of  about  two 
miles,  which  I  will  show  you  on  the  first  occasion, 
from  our  house  to  the  railroad. 

(Journal.)    "  Newton,  October  20.     A  Sabbath 
in  the  country,  but  not  as  odoriferous  as  I  had 

imagined.    Mr. ,  a  plain,  serious  Calvinist,  not 

winning,  but  not  repelling ;  one  of  the  useful  po- 
lice which  God  makes  out  of  the  ignorance  and 
superstition  of  the  youth  of  the  world.  I  dare  not 
and  wish  not  to  speak  disrespectfully  of  these  good, 
abstemious,  laborious  men,  yet  I  could  not  help  ask- 
ing myself,  How  long  is  society  to  be  taught  in  this 
dramatic  or  allegorical  style  ?  When  is  religious 
truth  to  be  distinctly  uttered?  What  it  is,  not 
what  it  resembles  ?  Thus,  every  Sunday  since 
they  were  born,  the  congregation  have  heard  tell  of 
salvation,  and  of  going  to  the  door  of  heaven  and 


RETURN  HOME.  207 

knocking,  and  being  answered  from  within :  '  De- 
part, I  never  knew  you.'  What  hinders  that,  in- 
stead of  this  parable,  the  naked  fact  be  stated  to 
them  ?  —  namely,  that  as  long  as  they  offend  against 
their  conscience  they  will  seek  to  be  happy,  but 
they  shall  not  be  able  ;  they  shall  not  come  to  any 
true  knowledge  of  God." 

In  some  brief  notes  which  he  furnished  for  the 
account  of  his  life  in  the  "American  Encyclopaedia," 
Emerson  speaks  of  a  lecture  which  he  delivered  in 
January,  1834,  before  the  Mechanics'  Institute  in 
Boston,  as  "  his  first  attempt  at  a  public  discourse 
after  leaving  the  pulpit."  Yet  it  appears  from  his 
"Preaching  Record,"  in  which  he  set  down  the 
dates  and  places  of  all  his  sermons,  that  he 
preached  at  the  Second  Church  in  Boston  on  the 
second  Sunday  after  his  return  home,  and  there- 
after, as  a  rule,  every  Sunday  in  various  places, 
four  years  longer.  And  as  late  as  1847  he  was 
still  preaching  occasionally.  It  seems,  therefore, 
that  by  "  leaving  the  pulpit  "  he  meant  renouncing 
the  claim  to  priestly  authority.  The  office  of  min- 
ister was  still  attractive  to  him,  had  it  been  possi- 
ble for  him  to  fulfil  the  duties.  And,  to  a  certain 
extent,  it  was  possible.  He  fully  sympathized 
with  the  love  of  the  Sunday  service,  and  he  was 
ready,  as  a  layman,  to  read  a  sermon  and  to  per- 
form such  other  parts  of  the  service  as  seemed  to 


208  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

him  profitable,  wherever  he  was  asked  to  do  so,  un- 
til he  could  see  his  way  to  something  more  satisfac- 
tory. 

He  writes  in  his  journal  at  this  time  :  — 

"A  new  audience,  a  new  Sabbath,  affords  an 
opportunity  of  communicating  thought  and  moral 
excitement  that  shall  surpass  all  previous  experi- 
ence, that  shall  constitute  an  epoch,  a  revolution  in 
the  minds  on  whom  you  act,*  and  in  your  own. 
The  young  preacher  is  discouraged  by  learning  the 
motives  that  brought  his  great  congregation  to 
church.  Scarcely  ten  came  to  hear  his  sermon, 
but  singing,  or  a  new  pelisse,  or  cousin  William, 
or  the  Sunday-school,  or  a  proprietors'  meeting 
after  church,  or  the  merest  anility  in  Hanover 
Street  were  the  beadles  that  brought  and  the  bolts 
that  held  his  silent  assembly.  Never  mind  how 
they  came,  my  friend,  never  mind  who  or  what 
brought  them,  —  any  more  than  you  mind  who  or 
what  set  you  down  in  Boston  in  1835.  Here  they 
are,  real  men  and  women,  —  fools,  I  grant,  but  po- 
tentially divine,  every  one  of  them  convertible." 

Some  years  later  (in  1841),  when  he  had  drifted 
f arther  away  from  churches,  he  says :  — 

"The  church  aerates  my  good  neighbors,  and 
serves  them  as  a  somewhat  stricter  and  finer  ablu- 
tion than  a  clean  shirt,  or  a  bath,  or  a  shampooing. 
When  they  have  spent  all  their  week  in  private 
and  selfish  action,  the  Sunday  reminds  them  of  a 


RETURN  HOME.  209 

need  they  have  to  stand  again  in  social  and  public 
and  ideal  relations,  beyond  neighborhood,  higher 
than  the  town-meeting,  to  their  fellow-men.  They 
marry ;  and  the  minister,  who  represents  this  high 
Public,  celebrates  the  fact.  Their  child  is  baptized ; 
and  again  they  are  published  by  his  intervention. 
One  of  the  family  dies ;  he  comes  again,  and  the 
family  go  up  to  the  church  to  be  publicized  or 
churched  in  this  official  sympathy  of  mankind.  It 
is  all  good  so  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  homage  to  the 
ideal  Church,  which  they  have  not ;  which  the 
actual  Church  so  foully  misrepresents.  But  it  is 
better  so  than  nohow.  These  people  have  no  fine 
arts,  no  literature,  no  great  men  to  Boswellize,  no 
fine  speculation  to  entertain  their  family  board  or 
their  solitary  toil  with.  Their  talk  is  of  oxen  and 
pigs  and  hay  and  corn  and  apples.  Whatsoever 
liberal  aspirations  they  at  any  time  have,  whatso- 
ever spiritual  experiences,  have  looked  this  way ; 
and  the  Church  is  their  fact  for  such  things.  It 
is  still  to  them  the  accredited  symbol  of  the  reli- 
gious idea.  The  Church  is  not  to  be  defended 
against  any  spiritualist  clamoring  for  its  reform ; 
but  against  such  as  say  it  is  expedient  to  shut  it  up 
and  have  none,  thus  much  may  be  said." 

In  1833  he  was  more  sanguine  about  a  reform. 
In  the  sermon  at  the  Second  Church,  soon  after 
his  return,  —  a  discourse  of  affectionate  greeting  to 
his  old  congregation,  and  of  hopefulness  for  the 


210  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

future  of  religious  instruction,  —  from  the  text 
"  When  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come,  he  will  guide 
you  into  all  truth,"  he  says  :  — 

"  Before  I  parted  from  you  I  anxiously  desired 
an  opportunity  of  speaking  to  you  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  that  change  which  seems  to  be  taking  place 
under  our  eyes  in  the  opinions  of  men  on  religious 
questions;  of  that  teaching  which  all  men  are 
waiting  for ;  of  that  Teacher  who  has  been  pre- 
dicted, and  hath  not  yet  come.  Who  is  that  Teach- 
er ?  Let  Jesus  answer.  Even  the  Spirit  of  truth. 
He  would  say  that  there  is  a  constant  effort  of  the 
Divine  Providence  for  the  instruction  of  man. 
Time,  the  great  teacher,  is  always  uttering  his  les- 
sons ;  every  day  is  exposing  some  of  the  falsehoods 
that  have  deceived  us ;  every  day  the  Almighty 
Father  accumulates  knowledge  in  the  mind  of  the 
race,  from  endless  sources.  The  Teacher  is  one, 
but  he  speaks  by  a  thousand  thousand  lips.  To  drop 
all  personification,  the  progress  of  society,  the  sim- 
ple occurrences  of  every  day,  are  always  instructing 
men,  undeceiving  them ;  and  every  event,  big  with 
what  crimes  and  misfortunes  soever,  carries  with  it 
this  beneficial  effect.  So  with  the  highest  truth, 
the  relations,  namely,  of  man  to  God,  and  the 
character  of  God.  The  perspective  of  time,  as  it 
sets  everything  in  the  right  view,  does  the  same  by 
Christianity.  We  learn  to  look  at  it  now  as  a  part 
of  the  history  of  the  world ;  to  see  how  it  rests  on 


RETURN  HOME.  211 

the  broad  basis  of  man's  moral  nature,  but  is  not 
itself  that  basis.  I  cannot  but  think  that  Jesus 
Christ  will  be  better  loved  by  not  being  adored. 
He  has  had  an  unnatural,  an  artificial  place  for 
ages  in  human  opinions,  a  place  too  high  for  love. 
There  is  a  recoil  of  the  affections  from  all  author- 
ity and  force.  In  the  barbarous  state  of  society  it 
was  thought  to  add  to  the  dignity  of  Christ  to 
make  him  King,  to  make  him  God.  .  .  .  But  will 
it  not  come  to  be  thought  the  chief  value  of  his 
teaching  that  it  was  a  brave  stand  made  for  man's 
spiritual  nature,  against  the  sensualism,  the  forms, 
and  the  crimes  of  the  age  ?  The  value  of  his  par- 
ticular lessons  is  something  less  to  us  than  it  was  to 
his  contemporaries,  because,  like  every  wise  and 
efficient  man,  he  spoke  to  his  times,  in  all  their  sin- 
gular peculiarities.  He  speaks  as  he  thinks,  but  he 
is  thinking  for  them.  And  it  is  the  great  mark  of 
the  extraordinary  force  of  his  mind  that,  notwith- 
standing this  occasional  character,  his  sayings  have 
a  fulness  of  meaning,  a  fitness  to  human  nature, 
and  an  universality  of  application  which  has  com- 
mended them  to  the  whole  world.  Christianity  is  the 
most  emphatic  affirmation  of  spiritual  nature.  But 
it  is  not  the  only  nor  the  last  affirmation.  There 
shall  be  a  thousand  more.  Very  inconsistent  would 
it  be  with  a  soul  so  possessed  with  the  love  of  the 
real  and  the  unseen  as  Christ's  to  set  bounds  to 
that  illimitable  ocean.  He  never  said  :  '  All 


212  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

truth  have  I  revealed.'  He  plainly  affirms  the 
direct  contrary :  '  I  will  send  you  another  Teacher, 
another  Comforter,  even  the  Spirit  of  truth ;  he  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth.'  His  word  is  a  mustard- 
seed;  it  is  a  little  leaven;  but,  with  a  prophet's 
eye,  he  sees  it  quicken  in  the  minds  of  good  men, 
and  run,  like  something  endued  with  life,  from 
soul  to  soul,  from  land  to  land,  —  searching,  agitat- 
ing, educating  society ;  touching  with  sympathy 
all  heroic  minds,  and  preparing  hearts  to  conceive 
and  tongues  to  utter  yet  more  lofty  and  significant 
revelations.  '  Greater  things  than  these  shall  he 
do.'  We  see  with  our  eyes  the  verification  of  his 
promise.  In  the  place  of  the  unsupported  virtues 
of  solitary  individuals  that  sparkle  in  the  darkness 
of  antiquity,  of  the  little  stingy,  rapacious  inter- 
course of  those  days,  the  nations  of  the  globe  are 
brought  together  by  pacific  and  equitable  com- 
merce; liberal,  humane,  Christian  associations  are 
correcting  the  manners  and  relieving  the  sufferings 
of  vast  masses  of  men :  are  they  not  all  the  fruit 
of  the  life  and  teachings  of  the  lowly  Nazarene  ? 
.  .  .  There  is  a  revolution  of  religious  opinion 
taking  effect  around  us,  as  it  seems  to  me  the 
greatest  of  all  revolutions  which  have  ever  oc- 
curred ;  that,  namely,  which  has  separated  the  in- 
dividual from  the  whole  world,  and  made  him 
demand  a  faith  satisfactory  to  his  own  proper  na- 
ture, whose  full  extent  he  now  for  the  first  time 


RETURN  HOME.  213 

contemplates.  A  little  while  ago  men  were  sup- 
posed to  be  saved  or  lost  as  one  race.  Adam  was 
the  federal  head,  and  his  sin  a  federal  sin,  which 
cut  off  the  hopes  of  all  his  posterity.  The  aton- 
ing blood  of  Christ  again  was  a  sacrifice  for  all, 
by  which  the  divine  vengeance  was  averted  from 
you  and  me.  But  now  .  .  .  man  begins  to  hear  a 
voice  that  fills  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  saying 
that  God  is  within  him ;  that  there  is  the  celestial 
host.  I  find  this  amazing  revelation  of  my  imme- 
diate relation  to  God  a  solution  to  all  the  doubts 
that  oppressed  me.  I  recognize  the  distinction  of 
the  outer  and  the  inner  self ;  the  double  conscious- 
ness that,  within  this  erring,  passionate,  mortal  self, 
sits  a  supreme,  calm,  immortal  mind,  whose  powers 
I  do  not  know,  but  it  is  stronger  than  I ;  it  is  wiser 
than  I;  it  never  approved  me  in  any  wrong;  I 
seek  counsel  of  it  in  my  doubts ;  I  repair  to  it  in 
my  dangers ;  I  pray  to  it  in  my  undertakings.  It 
seems  to  me  the  face  which  the  Creator  uncovers 
to  his  child.  It  is  the  perception  of  this  depth  in 
human  nature,  this  infinitude  belonging  to  every 
man  that  has  been  born,  which  has  given  new  value 
to  the  habits  of  reflection  and  solitude.  In  this 
doctrine,  as  deeply  felt  by  him,  is  the  key  by  which 
the  words  that  fell  from  Christ  upon  the  character 
of  God  can  alone  be  well  and  truly  explained. 
'  The  Father  is  in  me :  I  am  in  the  Father,  yet  the 
Father  is  greater  than  I.' 


214  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  I  anticipate  auspicious  effects  from  the  farther 
opening  of  this  faith  upon  the  public  mind  ;  from 
the  studies  and  actings  of  good  men  in  the  course 
wherein  its  light  will  lead  them.  It  will  be  inspi- 
ration to  prophets  and  heroes.  It  will  be  day  with- 
out night.  In  a  particular  manner  will  not  the  in- 
creased clearness  of  the  spiritual  sight  produce  a 
great  reform  in  the  tone  and  character  of  our  pub- 
lic religious  teaching  ?  Will  it  not  put  an  end  to 
all  that  is  technical,  allegorical,  parabolical,  in  it  ?  " 

He  took  no  further  steps  at  this  time  in  the  di- 
rection here  indicated,  —  finding  no  distinct  invi- 
tation. 

BOSTON,  January  18,  1834. 

DEAR  WILLIAM  :  .  .  .  I  have  been  writing 
three  lectures  on  Natural  History,  and  of  course 
reading  as  much  geology,  chemistry,  and  physics 
as  I  could  find.  Meantime  my  ethics  and  theo- 
logies lie  in  abeyance ;  for  you  cannot  preach  to 
people  unless  they  will  hear.  However,  some  of 
the  faithful  remain  upon  this  portion  of  the  earth, 
and  by  and  by  we  may  find  a  little  chapel  of  the 
truth.  I  am  just  on  the  edge  of  another  journey 
to  New  Bedford,  where  I  may  spend  the  month  of 
February,  having  been  overpersuaded  by  their 
kindness  and  zeal.  If  nobody  wants  us  in  the 
world,  are  we  not  excused  from  action,  and  may  we 
not,  blameless,  use  the  philosophy  which  teaches  that 


REFORM  IN  RELIGIOUS  TEACHING.      215 

by  all  events  the  individual  is  made  wiser,  and  that 
this  may  be  an  ultimate  object  in  the  benevolence 
of  the  Creator? 


He  had  been  preaching  for  Dr.  Orville  Dewey 
in  New  Bedford,  and  it  was  intimated  to  him  that 
he  might  receive  a  call  to  the  pulpit  which  Dr. 
Dewey  was  then  leaving ;  but  he  stipulated  that  he 
should  not  be  expected  to  administer  the  Com- 
munion, nor  to  offer  prayer  unless  he  felt  moved  to 
do  so,  and  to  these  terms  the  church  could  not 
agree.  At  New  Bedford  he  lived  among  the 
Quakers,  with  whose  faith  he  felt  much  sympathy. 
Among  them  he  became  acquainted  with  Miss 
Mary  Rotch,  whom  he  always  remembered  with 
high  honor. 

In  this  state  of  suspense  his  thoughts  turned  to- 
wards a  retirement  to  sprue  remote  part  of  the 
country,  perhaps  Berkshire,  where,  in  the  dry  air 
of  the  hills,  he  might  provide  a  safe  abode  for  Ed- 
ward, who  was  manfully  holding  out  in  his  West 
Indian  exile,  but  looking  always  with  an  inextin- 
guishable longing  towards  his  distant  home. 
Charles,  too,  was  not  disinclined  towards  such  a 
scheme.  The  means  for  carrying  it  out  were  not 
wanting,  for  Waldo  was  now  expecting  to  receive 
before  long  his  wife's  share  of  her  father's  prop- 
erty ;  enough,  with  what  they  could  earn,  to  pro- 
vide for  their  modest  wants. 


216  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

December  22,  1833. 

DEAR  EDWARD  :  .  .  .  One  of  these  days,  if  we 
may  believe  the  lawyers,  I  am  to  be  the  richer  for 
Ellen's  estate ;  and,  whenever  that  day  arrives,  I 
hope  it  will  enable  me  to  buy  a  hearth  somewhere 
to  which  we  pious  incases  may  return  with  our 
household  gods  from  all  the  quarters  of  our  disper- 
sion. ...  If  you  wish  to  know  what  I  do,  I  preach 
at  New  Bedford,  sometimes  in  Boston.  I  have 
written  a  lecture  upon  Natural  History,  and  am 
now  preparing  another  for  next  Tuesday  evening, 
and  have  promised  one  to  the  Mechanics'  Institute. 
I  meditate  something  more  seriously  than  ever  be- 
fore the  adventure  of  a  periodical  paper,  which 
shall  speak  truth  without  fear  or  favor  to  all  who 
desire  to  hear  it,  with  such  persuasion  as  shall 
compel  them  to  speak  it  also.  Henry  Hedge  is  an 
unfolding  man,  who  has  just  now  written  the  best 
pieces  that  have  appeared  in  the  Examiner ;  one 
especially  was  a  living,  leaping  Logos,  and  he  may 
help  me. 

Charles  and  I  went  to  Concord  a  few  days 
ago.  He  delivered  a  fine  lecture  upon  Socrates. 
But  Charles  looks  often  despondent,  and  finds  his 
fate  as  hard  as  yours.  Indeed,  that  properly  be- 
longs to  the  race  man,  rather  than  to  any  indi- 
vidual. How  come  on  the  adventures?  I  was 
Borry  to  hear  of  any  disappointments.  Pray  rein 


REFORM  IN  RELIGIOUS  TEACHING.      217 

in  that  sanguine  genius  of  yours,  that  risks  and 
projects  so  magnificently,  and  which  I  can  well  re- 
member from  Latin  School  and  Andover  upward, 
and  make  him  trot  tame  and  safe  for  a  year  or 
two ;  for  nothing  is  so  important  as  your  health, 
to  which  the  anxieties  of  indebtedness  will  never 
contribute.  We  can  get  used  to  being  poor,  for 
the  first  men  and  happiest  men  of  the  earth  have 
been  so,  but  we  can't  away  with  pain  and  disease ; 
and  whatever  loss  you  suffer  by  following  this  bad 
advice  set  down  to  my  account,  and  it  shall  be 
cheerfully  and  affectionately  honored  by  your 
brother,  WALDO. 

NEWTON,  May  31,  1834. 

Here  sit  mother  and  I  among  the  pine-trees,  still 
almost  as  we  shall  lie  by  and  by  under  them.  Here 
we  sit,  always  learning  and  never  coming  to  the 
knowledge  of.  The  greatest  part  of  my  virtue  — 
that  mustard-seedlet  that  no  man  wots  of  —  is 
hope.  I  am  ever  of  good  cheer,  and,  if  the  heaven 
asks  no  service  at  my  hands,  am  reconciled  to  my 
insignificance,  yet  keeping  my  eye  open  upon  the 
brave  and  the  beautiful.  Philosophy  affirms  that 
the  outward  world  is  only  phenomenal,  and  the 
whole  concern  of  dinners,  of  tailors,  of  gigs,  of 
balls,  whereof  men  make  such  account,  an  intricate 
dream,  the  exhalation  of  the  present  state  of  the 
soul,  wherein  the  Understanding  works  incessantly 


218  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

as  if  it  were  real,  but  the  eternal  Reason,  when  now 
and  then  he  is  allowed  to  speak,  declares  it  is  an 
accident,  a  smoke,  nowise  related  to  his  perma- 
nent attributes.  Now  that  I  have  used  the  words, 
let  me  ask  you,  Do  you  draw  the  distinction  of 
Milton,  Coleridge,  and  the  Germans  between  Rea- 
son and  Understanding  ?  I  think  it  a  philosophy 
itself,  and,  like  all  truth,  very  practical.  Reason 
is  the  highest  faculty  of  the  soul,  what  we  mean 
often  by  the  soul  itself:  it  never  reasons,  never 
proves  ;  it  simply  perceives,  it  is  vision.  The  Un- 
derstanding toils  all  the  time,  compares,  contrives, 
adds,  argues;  near-sighted  but  strong  -  sighted, 
dwelling  in  the  present,  the  expedient,  the  custom- 
ary. .  .  .  But  glad  should  I  be  to  hold  academical 
questions  with  you  here  at  Newton.  The  Tucker 
estate  is  so  far  settled  that  I  am  made  sure  of  an 
income  of  about  twelve  hundred  dollars,  wherewith 
the  Reason  of  mother  and  you  and  I  might  defy 
the  Understanding,  upon  his  own  ground,  for  the 
rest  of  the  few  years  in  which  we  shall  be  subject 
to  his  insults.  I  need  not  say  that  what  I  speak  in 
play  I  speak  in  earnest.  If  you  will  come,  we  will 
retreat  into  Berkshire,  and  make  a  little  world  of 
other  stuff.  Your  brother,  WALDO. 

In  a  fragment  of  a  letter,  the  last  he  ever  wrote, 
Edward  thanks  him  for  his  "  splendid  offer,"  but 
says  it  is  "  too  luxurious,  too  full  of  the  air  of  Eden, 


DEATH  OF  HIS  BROTHER  EDWARD.      219 

to  be  soberly  embraced  as  a  commonplace  arrange- 
ment by  one  who  has  ever  pierced  his  hands  in 
each  attempt  to  grasp  a  rose.  Nevertheless,  next 
year,  when  I  come  to  you,  we  will  talk  over  what 
then  remains  unvanished  of  the  project." 

Before  the  next  year  came  the  tidings  of  Ed- 
ward's death  (October  1,  1834).  Edward  Bliss 
Emerson  was  a  much  more  brilliant  man  than 
Waldo ;  strikingly  handsome,  with  "  an  indig- 
nant eloquence  "  (says  one  who  remembers  him), 
ambitious  in  a  high  sort.  Full  of  talent  and  per- 
sonal force,  a  favorite  in  society,  he  seemed  born 
for  a  leader  of  men,  but  was  ill  seconded  by  his 
body,  in  which  the  family  tendency  to  chest-disease 
had  been  aggravated  past  the  reach  of  cure  by  the 
circumstances  of  his  life  and  the  strain  of  an  eager 
temperament  that  would  not  let  him  rest.  To  some 
of  their  contemporaries,  as  to  Dr.  Hedge  (see  above, 
p.  138),  the  promise  of  the  elder  brother  seemed 
faint  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  younger,  and 
there  are  those  who  think  that,  but  for  his  untimely 
eclipse,  Edward  would  have  made  the  name  of  Em- 
erson more  famous  than  it  is.  Yet,  when  a  friend 
alluded  to  the  sensation  that  some  of  his  college 
dissertations  produced,  Edward  said,  "  Yes,  they 
say  much  of  me,  but  I  tell  them  that  the  real  lion 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah  is  at  home."  He  always  de- 
ferred to  Waldo's  judgment  in  literary  matters,  and 
took  his  counsel  about  his  college  papers.  He  was 


220  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

prepared  to  enter  college  at  thirteen,  but  submitted 
without  a  murmur  when  money  considerations  in- 
terfered to  induce  delay.  The  next  year,  obstinate 
"  colds  "  and  weakness  of  the  eyes  forced  him  to 
break  off  and  sail  in  a  coasting  vessel  for  the 
South,  where  he  passed  the  winter.  Returning  in 
the  summer  (1820),  he  entered  Harvard  College, 
where  from  the  outset  he  was  easily  first,  first  with- 
out any  second  in  college  rank  ;  making  an  impres- 
sion that  is  still  remembered.  Like  the  rest  of  the 
brothers,  he  kept  school  during  the  college  vaca- 
tions and  after  he  graduated,  and  in  this  capacity 
also  is  remembered  as  of  unapproached  excellence.1 
At  the  same  time  he  was  admitted,  upon  Mr.  Web- 
ster's certificate,  as  a  student  at  the  Suffolk  bar ; 2 
but  was  obliged  by  the  state  of  his  health  to  take  a 
voyage  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  spent  a  year  in 
Europe.  Upon  his  return  he  entered  Mr.  Web- 
ster's office  in  Boston,  and  soon  won  a  confidential 
position.  Mr.  Webster  entrusted  him  with  the 
care  of  his  children  during  the  absence  of  their 
parents  from  home,  saying  that  he  did  so  without 
anxiety,  for  Emerson  could  take  better  care  of 
them  than  he  could.  Besides  his  law-studies  he 
took  four  boys  as  pupils,  "to  employ  his  leisure 

1  Dr.  D.  G.  Haskins,  Reminiscences,  p.  38. 

2  Professor  James  B.  Thayer  informs  me  that  ordinarily  no 
certificate  of  studentship  was  required.     Perhaps  the  variety  of 
Edward  Emerson's  employments  might  make  it  needful  or  con. 
venient  in  his  case  to  fix  the  time  when  his  law-studies  began. 


DEATH  OF  HIS  BROTHER  EDWARD.      221 

hours  ;  "  was  "  reading  three  hours  a  day  to  Wil- 
liam H.  Prescott ; "  and  "  glad  to  get  a  job  of  cata- 
loguing books  for  the  Boston  Athenseum." 

At  such  a  rate  of  consumption  and  with  so 
scanty  supply,  the  oil  of  life  could  not  hold  out. 
But  his  high  spirit  would  admit  no  relaxation  so 
long  as  the  debts  occasioned  by  his  European  jour- 
ney remained  unpaid.  "  Every  well  day  [he  writes 
to  Waldo  in  1827]  carries  me  nearer  to  the  point 
where  I  hope  to  find  the  file  that,  industriously  used, 
is  to  separate  these  fetters  of  debt,  and  leave  the 
limbs  free."  He  would  not  "go  any  deeper  in  that 
dead  and  bitter  sea  of  debt  that  drowns  so  many 
vigorous  swimmers."  He  lost  the  confident  gaiety 
of  demeanor  that  was  natural  to  him,  and  fell  into  a 
melancholy  and  a  morbid  conscientiousness,  ending 
in  illness  and  then  suddenly  in  violent  insanity, 
from  which  he  recovered,  indeed,  in  a  few  months, 
but  with  broken  health,  and  with  the  feeling  that 
he  must  thenceforth  stand  aside  from  the  busy 
pathways  of  life,  and  content  himself  in  bearing  his 
burden  with  as  little  infliction  of  it  upon  others  as 
might  be.  In  1830  he  went  to  the  island  of  St. 
Croix,  and  thence  to  Porto  Rico,  where  he  obtained 
a  clerkship  with  slender  pay,  and  remained  until 
his  death :  in  appearance,  as  he  was  seen  by  trav- 
elling friends,  tranquil  and  even  gay;  affording 
hopes  for  his  final  restoration  to  health,  but  well 
aware  himself,  as  he  said,  that  "  the  arrow  of  the 
angel  had  gone  too  deep." 


222  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  So  falls  [writes  Waldo]  one  pile  more  of  hope 
for  this  life.  I  am  bereaved  of  a  part  of  my- 
self." They  were  nearest  in  age  and  in  the  range 
of  their  intellectual  sympathies,  and  the  difference 
of  temperament  only  increased  their  mutual  attrac- 
tion. Since  their  boyhood  they  had  seen  but  little 
of  each  other,  but  now  that  they  were  to  meet  no 
more  the  sense  of  solitude  struck  the  survivor  as 
if  they  .had  never  been  separated. 

Emerson's  first  lectures  were  upon  subjects  con- 
nected with  natural  science.  Dr.  Holmes  says  of 
him  that  "  he  looked  rather  askance  at  science  in 
his  early  days."  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  love 
analysis,  and  so  was  unfitted  to  be  an  investiga- 
tor ;  yet  his  note-books  show  a  good  deal  of  read- 
ing in  books  of  science.  He  quotes  from  De  Can- 
dolle  and  Sprengel,  Cuvier  and  Sir  Everard  Home, 
and  has  pages  of  citations  from  books  on  chemistry 
and  meteorology.  In  November,  1833,  a  few  weeks 
after  his  return  from  Europe,  he  delivered  the  in- 
troductory lecture  in  a  course  given  under  the 
direction  of  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History. 
In  December  of  the  same  year  he  read  a  paper  on 
the  "  Relation  of  Man  to  the  Globe  ;  "  in  January, 
1834,  he  lectured  before  the  Mechanics'  Institute 
in  Boston  on  "  Water  ;  "  and  in  May  he  delivered 
the  annual  address  at  the  meeting  of  the  Natural 
History  Society. 


LECTURES.  223 

In  the  first  of  these  papers,  "  On  the  Uses  of 
Natural  History,"  he  adverts  to  his  recent  visit  to 
the  Museum  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  at  consid- 
erable length,  describing  particular  specimens  and 
dwelling  upon  the  interest  that  is  given  to  them  by 
seeing  them  together,  in  the  discovery  of  occult  re- 
lations to  ourselves :  — 

"  It  is  in  my  judgment  the  greatest  office  of  nat- 
ural science  (and  one  which  as  yet  is  only  begun 
to  be  discharged)  to  explain  man  to  himself.  The 
knowledge  of  all  the  facts,  of  all  the  laws  of  nature, 
will  give  man  his  true  place  in  the  system  of  be- 
ing." 

This  was  a  familiar  thought  with  Emerson.  In 
a  sermon  at  the  Second  Church  he  said  that  the 
Copernican  astronomy,  in  dispelling  the  boastful 
dreams  of  theologians,  which  had  made  this  planet 
the  sole  theatre  of  God's  moral  government,  had 
rendered  an  immense  service  to  religion.  Our  con- 
ceptions of  man  and  his  destiny  receive  an  infinite 
enlargement  by  being  connected  with  a  universal 
scheme  of  being. 

He  knew  something  of  Lamarck's  speculations, 
and  the  phrase  "  arrested  development "  had  struck 
his  attention.  In  the  lecture  "  On  the  Relation  of 
Man  to  the  Globe,"  he  speaks  of  the  fact,  "  the  most 
surprising,  I  may  say  the  most  sublime,  that  man 
is  no  upstart  in  the  creation,  but  has  been  prophe- 
sied in  nature  for  a  thousand  thousand  ages  be- 


224  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

fore  he  appeared  ;  that,  from  times  incalculably  re- 
mote, there  has  been  a  progressive  preparation  for 
him,  an  effort  to  produce  him ;  the  meaner  crea- 
tures containing  the  elements  of  his  structure  and 
pointing  at  it  from  every  side.  .  .  .  His  limbs  are 
only  a  more  exquisite  organization — say  rather 
the  finish  —  of  the  rudimental  forms  that  have 
been  already  sweeping  the  sea  and  creeping  in  the 
mud :  the  brother  of  his  hand  is  even  now  cleaving 
the  Arctic  Sea  in  the  fin  of  the  whale,  and  innu- 
merable ages  since  was  pawing  the  marsh  in  the 
nipper  of  the  saurian." 

In  the  address  before  the  Natural  History  So- 
ciety, he  says :  "  There  is  deep  reason  for  the  love 
of  nature  that  has  characterized  the  highest  minds. 
The  soul  and  the  body  of  things  are  harmonized ; 
therefore  the  deeper  a  man's  insight  into  the  spi- 
ritual laws,  the  more  intense  will  be  his  love  of  the 
works  of  nature.  But  it  is  said  that  man  is  the 
only  object  of  interest  to  man.  I  fully  believe  it. 
I  believe  that  the  constitution  of  man  is  the  centre 
from  which  all  our  speculations  depart.  But  it  is 
the  wonderful  charm  of  external  nature  that  man 
stands  in  a  central  connection  with  it  all ;  not  an 
individual  in  the  kingdom  of  organized  life  but 
sends  out  a  ray  of  relation  to  him." 

Emerson  looked  at  nature  as  a  poet  and  not  as  a 
man  of  science,  yet  he  was  not  unmindful  of  the 
advantage  that  belongs  to  science,  of  presenting 


LECTURES.  225 

definite  objects  of  study,  things  finished  off  and 
Complete,  instead  of  the  infinite  objects 


ment.  "They  are  perfect  creatures.  In  nature 
nothing  is  false  or  unsuccessful.  That  which  is 
aimed  at  is  attained.  A  willow  or  an  apple  is  a 
perfect  being  ;  so  is  a  bee  or  a  thrush.  The  best 
poem  or  statue  or  picture  is  not."  Hence  "  the  dis- 
cipline of  natural  science  is  that  it  sharpens  the 
discrimination.  It  teaches  the  difficult  art  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  similar  and  the  same.  The 
whole  study  of  nature  is  perpetual  division  and 
subdivision,  and  these  distinctions  are  real.  All 
properties  are  permanent.  Natural  objects  are  so 
sharply  discriminated,  and  any  mistake  in  practice 
is  so  promptly  exposed,  that  it  is  to  be  desired  that 
so  many  dull  understandings,  who  make  no  distinc- 
tions, should  be  set  to  making  chemical  mixtures 
or  classifying  plants.  What  pity,  instead  of  that 
equal  and  identical  praise  which  enters  into  all 
biographies  and  spreads  poppies  over  all,  that 
writers  of  characters  cannot  be  forced  to  describe 
men  so  that  they  shall  be  known  apart  ;  even  if  it 
were  copied  from  the  sharp  marks  of  botany  ;  such 
as,  dry,  solitary,  sour,  plausible,  prosing  ;  which 
were  worth  a  graveyard  of  obituaries."  And  it 
might  restrain  our  national  vice  of  imitation  ;  for 
"  imitation  is  a  servile  copying  of  what  is  capri- 
cious, as  if  it  were  permanent  forms  of  nature.  All 
American  manners,  language,  and  writing  are  de- 


226  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

rivative.  We  do  not  write  from  facts,  but  we  wish 
to  state  facts  after  the  English  manner.  It  is  the 
tax  we  pay  for  the  splendid  inheritance  of  the 
English  literature.  We  are  exonerated  by  the  sea 
and  the  Revolution  from  the  national  debt,  but 
we  pay  this,  which  is  rather  the  worse  part.  Time 
will  certainly  cure  us,  probably  through  the  pre- 
valence of  a  bad  party,  ignorant  of  all  literature 
and  of  all  but  selfish  gross  pursuits.  But  a  better 
cure  would  be  in  the  study  of  natural  history  ;  for 
the  study  of  things  leads  us  back  to  truth.  But  as 
books  can  never  teach  the  use  of  books,  neither 
does  science,  when  it  becomes  technical,  keep  its 
own  place  in  the  mind,  f  Men  are  so  prone  to  mis- 
take the  means  for  the  end  that  even  natural  his- 
tory has  its  pedants,  who  mistake  classification  for 
science;! who  forget  that  classification  is  but  a  con- 
venience for  the  collection  of  facts  awaiting  the 
discovery  of  the  law.  He  only  can  derive  all  the 
advantage  from  intimate  knowledge  who  forces 
the  magnified  objects  back  into  their  true  perspec- 
tive ;  who,  after  he  has  searched  the  proximate 
atoms,  integrates  them  again,  as  in  nature  they  are 
integrated.  It  seems  the  duty  of  the  naturalist  to 
be  a  poet  in  his  severest  analysis  ;  rather  I  should 
say,  to  make  the  naturalist  subordinate  to  the  man. 
It  is  for  want  of  this  marriage  of  mind  to  nature 
that  both  remain  unfruitful.  The  poet  loses  him- 
self  in  imaginations,  and,  for  want  of  accuracy,  is 


LECTURES.  227 

a  mere  fabulist.  The  savant,  on  the  other  hand, 
losing  sight  of  the  end  of  his  inquiries  in  the  per- 
fection of  his  manipulations,  becomes  an  apothe- 
cary, a  pedant.  I  fully  believe  in  both,  in  the 
poetry  and  in  the  dissection.  Accuracy,  then,  that 
we  may  really  know  something;  but  under  the 
guidance  of  the  pious  sentiment  of  curiosity  to  un- 
derstand ourselves  and  the  whole." 

The  idea  upon  which  he  dwells  in  "  Nature,"  and 
to  which  he  recurred  in  some  of  his  latest  lectures 
(on  the  "  Natural  History  of  the  Intellect "),  —  that 
the  external  world  is  an  answer  in  hieroglyphics  to 
the  questions  the  mind  would  put  concerning  itself, 
—  is  indicated  in  these  early  papers.  In  the  ad- 
dress to  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History,  he 
says :  "  A  thorough  knowledge  of  the  mineral  and 
the  plant  would  continually  disclose  its  relation  to 
man,  and  explain  some  corresponding  secret  in  man ; 
so  that  every  plant  in  its  little  year  would  be  pro- 
phet, physician,  astronomer,  moralist,  to  us."  The 
lecture  on  the  "  Uses  of  Natural  History  "  concludes 
with  the  question :  "  Whether  the  most  mysterious 
and  wonderful  fact,  after  our  own  existence,  be 
not  the  power  of  expression  which  belongs  to  ex- 
ternal nature ;  or  that  correspondence  of  the  out- 
ward  to  the  inward  world  of  thought  and  emotions, 
by  which  it  is  suited  to  express  what  we  think  ?  " l 

This  winter  (1834)  he  gave  also  two  lectures  on 

1  For  further  accounts  of  these  and  other  lectures  see  Appendix  F. 


228  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

Italy,  in  which  he  recounted  the  incidents  of  his 
tour  very  simply  from  his  journal,  for  the  benefit  of 
his  uutravelled  townsmen. 

In  the  summer  he  was  chosen  poet  for  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  in  Cam- 
bridge. Some  of  the  verses,  giving  a  portrait  of 
Mr.  Webster  as  he  then  appeared  to  Emerson,  are 
published  in  the  Appendix  to  the  "  Poems  "  in  the 
Riverside  edition.1 

He  had  not  yet  given  up  the  thought  of  a  retire- 
ment from  the  haunts  of  men.  He  wrote  to  Dr. 
Hedge  (July  12th)  from  Bangor,  Maine,  where  he 
was  preaching :  — 

"  I  am  almost  persuaded  to  sit  down  on  the 
banks  of  this  pleasant  stream,  and,  if  I  could 
only  persuade  a  small  number  of  persons  to  join 
my  colony,  we  would  have  a  settlement  thirty  miles 
up  the  river,  at  once." 

But  in  October  he  and  his  mother,  at  Dr.  Rip- 
ley's  invitation,  went  to  live  in  the  Manse  at  Con- 
cord. Here  their  wanderings  came  to  an  end ;  for 
here,  as  it  turned  out,  Emerson  was  to  fix  his  resi- 
dence. There  was  much  to  recommend  this  place  : 
here  his  forefathers  had  lived,  and  his  earliest  asso- 
ciations with  the  country  went  back  to  visits  with 
his  brothers  at  the  Concord  Manse,  and  their  strolls 
over  Dr.  Ripley's  hill  and  Peter's  field  and  the 
i  Collected  Writings,  ix.  312. 


LECTURES.  229 

woods  of  Sleepy  Hollow  beyond.  Then  Charles 
was  to  marry  a  Concord  lady,  Miss  Elizabeth 
Hoar,  and  had  decided  to  begin  the  practice  of 
the  law  here. 

They  lived  in  the  Manse  a  year,  until,  in  the 
winter  of  1835,  Emerson  became  engaged  to  Miss 
Lydia  l  Jackson,  of  Plymouth,  and  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  look  out  for  a  house  of  his  own.  Writ- 
ing to  William  in  April  he  says :  — 

"  I  hope  to  hire  a  house  and  set  up  a  fireside 
next  September.  Perhaps  Charles  also ;  and,  a 
year  hence,  shall  we  not  build  a  house  on  grand- 
father's hill,  facing  Wachusett,  Monadnoc,  and  the 
setting  sun  ?  " 

This  hillside,  opposite  the  Manse,  and  the  field 
beyond,  variously  called  Peter's  field  or  Caesar's 
woods,  from  ancient  tillers  of  it,  liberated  negro 
slaves,  whose  cabins  had  stood  there,  were  favorite 
resorts  of  Emerson  and  his  brothers.  In  one  of 
his  journals  he  describes  the  view :  — 

"  Sunday  evening.  I  went  at  sundown  to  the 
top  of  Dr.  Ripley's  hill,  and  renewed  my  vows  to 
the  genius  of  that  place.  Somewhat  of  awe,  some- 
what grand  and  solemn,  mingles  with  the  beauty 
that  shines  afar  around.  In  the  west,  where  the 
sun  was  sinking  behind  clouds,  one  pit  of  splendor 
lay  as  in  a  desert  of  space,  —  a  deposit  of  still 

1  Changed,  at  Emerson's  desire,  to  Lidian,  as  uniting  better 
in  sound  with  the  new  surname. 


230  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

light,  not  radiant.  Then  I  beheld  the  river  like 
God's  love  journeying  out  of  the  gray  past  into 
the  green  future." 

But  an  opportunity  occurred  that  made  it  pru- 
dent for  him  to  choose  a  less  favored  spot :  — 

"  July  27,  1835.  Has  Charles  told  you  that  I 
have  dodged  the  doom  of  building,  and  have 
bought  the  Coolidge  house  in  Concord,  with  the 
expectation  of  entering  it  next  September  ?  It  is 
in  a  mean  place,  and  cannot  be  fine  until  trees 
and  flowers  give  it  a  character  of  its  own.  But  we 
shall  crowd  so  many  books  and  papers,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, wise  friends  into  it,  that  it  shall  have  as  much 
wit  as  it  can  carry.  My  house  costs  me  thirty -five 
hundred  dollars,  and  may  next  summer  cost  four  or 
five  hundred  more  to  enlarge  or  finish.  The  seller 
alleges  that  it  cost  him  seventy-eight  hundred." 

This  house  was  Emerson's  home  for  the  rest  of 
his  life.  The  situation  was  not  all  that  could  be 
desired :  the  house  stands  rather  low,  upon  ground 
sloping  to  a  meadow  through  which  a  brook  flows 
on  to  Concord  River,  with  no  extensive  outlook 
except  on  the  east,  towards  the  Lincoln  hills. 
Still,  upon  the  whole,  it  suited  him  very  well. 
Without  being  too  remote,  it  was  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  village,  and  gave  him  plenty  of  open  ground 
about  him,  which  was  an  important  consideration. 
Speaking  somewhere  of  a  reformer 1  who  objected 

1  One  of  the  founders  of  the  short-lived  community  of  Fruit- 


LECTURES.  231 

to  cows  that  they  require  so  much  land,  he  says : 
"But  a  cow  does  not  need  so  much  land  as  my 
eyes  require  between  me  and  my  neighbor."  Here 
was  a  wide  expanse  on  three  sides,  and  ample 
space  in  front  next  the  road.  In  the  rear,  a  path- 
way led  across  the  brook  through  open  fields  to 
Walden  and  the  Cliff,  his  favorite  walks.  Then 
the  house,  a  square,  comely  mansion,  after  the  pat- 
tern often  seen  on  the  main  street  of  the  older  New 
England  villages,  was  of  a  size  and  style  beyond 
what  he  would  have  thought  fit  to  build  for  him- 
self. 

"  Being  a  lover  of  solitude,  I  went  to  live  in  the 
country,  seventeen  miles  from  Boston,  and  there 
the  northwest  wind,  with  all  his  snows,  took  me  in 
charge  and  defended  me  from  all  company  in  win- 
ter, and  the  hills  and  sand-banks  that  intervened 
between  me  and  the  city  kept  guard  in  summer." 

In  the  early  part  of  the  year  (1835),  while  still 
at  the  Manse,  he  gave  in  Boston  five  biographical 
lectures,  on  Michelangelo,  Luther,  Milton,  George 
Fox,  and  Burke,  with  an  introduction  on  the  Tests 
of  Great  Men.  One  of  these  tests,  he  says,  is 
good-humor.  Sweet-tempered  ability  is  the  mark 
of  heroic  manners.  Napoleon  worked  gloomily, 
alone ;  Luther,  La  Fayette,  Alfred,  Shakspeare,  in 

lands,  in  the  town  of  Harvard.  They  would  have  no  cows,  —  We 
do  not,  they  sa'id,  stimulate  with  milk ;  but  their  ploughman,  lik- 
ing a  cup  of  milk,  hired  cows  instead  of  oxen  for  the  ploughing. 


232  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

broad  daylight,  with  red  cheeks.  Julius  Caesar 
had  good-humored  ambition;  Bonaparte  was  nar- 
row and  jealous.  Then,  unselfish  enthusiasm. 
Even  such  a  devastator  as  Attila,  esteeming  him- 
self God's  Scourge,  opened  into  himself  supernal 
influence.  He  did  not  insist  on  the  sweetness  of 
Michelangelo  or  of  Milton.  They  were  absolved, 
like  Dante,  by  the  loftiness  of  their  genius.  But 
in  Luther  and  in  George  Fox  human  kindness  was 
a  main  source  of  power.  It  was  the  union  of  a 
broad  humanity  and  common  sense  and  warm  so- 
cial affections  with  the  extraordinary  intensity  of 
his  convictions  that  saved  Luther  from  the  extrav- 
agances of  fanaticism. 

The  papers  of  Michelangelo  and  Milton  he  rather 
reluctantly  allowed  Dr.  Palfrey,  the  editor  of  the 
North  American  Review,  to  publish,  in  1837  and 
1838. 

In  August  on  this  year  he  made  the  opening  ad- 
dress at  the  American  Institute  of  Education,  in 
Boston.  The  subject  was  "  The  best  mode  of  in- 
spiring a  correct  taste  in  English  literature."  The 
Reverend  Dr.  Hague l  says  that  Emerson  "  com- 
menced his  address  with  a  brilliant  paragraph  con- 
taining a  parenthetic  affirmation  of  the  uselessness 
of  prayer !  "  There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the 
manuscript,  and  I  can  only  suppose  that  Emerson, 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  A  paper  read  before  the  New  York 
Genealogical  and  Biographical  Society.  New  York,  1884 :  p.  5. 


LECTURES.  233 

contrary  to  his  wont,  improvised  the  exordium  of 
his  discourse.  But  whatever  he  may  have  said,  he 
can  hardly  have  intended  anything  so  unqualified. 
"  As  well  [he  said]  might  a  child  live  without 
its  mother's  milk  as  a  soul  without  prayer."  It 
was  doubtless  meant  to  be  restricted  to  public  or 
vicarious  praying ;  which,  Emerson  thought,  was 
apt  to  fall  into  something  extremely  different. 

I  will  take  this  occasion  to  advert  to  another 
passage  in  d'.  Hague's  too  brief  reminiscences,  in 
which  he  quotes  from  Emerson's  essay  on  the  "  Sov- 
ereignty of  Ethics  "  to  show  that  Emerson,  look- 
ing back  upon  his  life  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  half 
a  century,  recognized  the  moral  and  social  disin- 
tegration which  his  teaching  had  wrought.  But 
that  essay,  although  first  published  in  1878,  was 
made  up  from  earlier  writings.  Most  of  it,  in- 
cluding the  substance  of  the  passage  in  question, 
belongs  to  the  lectures  on  the  "Present  Age," 
delivered  in  1839-40  ;  and  there  are  similar  pas- 
sages in  his  Cambridge  note-books,  ten  years  ear- 
lier. They  all  express  what  he  felt  at  all  times  of 
his  life,  the  attractiveness  that  belongs  to  the  ages 
of  unquestioning  faith ;  but  he  was  thinking  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  not  of  the  nineteenth  or  the 
eighteenth,  and  what  he  felt  was  an  imaginative 
sympathy,  without  any  wish  to  go  back  to  them. 

To  return  to  the  address :  the  leading  thought 
was  that  since  all  the  colleges  in  the  world  cannot 


234  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

make  one  scholar,  any  more  than  the  physician  can 
make  one  drop  of  blood,  those  who  are  to  super- 
vise education  must  not  expect  much  from  inge- 
nious methods  or  urgent  appeals,  but  should  aim  to 
awaken  in  those  under  their  charge  the  sense  of 
their  own  powers  and  their  particular  vocation, 
and,  in  the  way  of  instruction,  acquaint  them  with 
the  wealth  of  their  mother-tongue,  as  the  best 
means  for  calling  out  their  capacities,  whatever 
these  may  be.  The  first  step  towards  a  revolution 
in  our  state  of  society,  he  says,  would  be  to  impress 
men's  minds  with  the  fact  that  the  purest  pleasures 
of  life  are  at  hand,  unknown  to  them  ;  that  whilst 
all  manner  of  miserable  books  swarm  like  flies,  the 
fathers  of  counsel  and  of  heroism,  Shakspeare, 
Bacon,  Milton,  and  Taylor,  lie  neglected.  And  as 
no  man  can  teach  more  than  he  knows,  or  inspire 
a  taste  which  he  has  not,  the  instructor  must  first 
fill  himself  with  these,  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
crowd  of  mediocre  writers.  Books  are  like  the 
stars  in  the  sky,  which  seem  innumerable,  but  be- 
gin to  count  them  and  they  diminish  apace.  As  to 
methods,  would  you  inspire  in  a  young  man  a  taste 
for  Chaucer  and  Bacon?  Quote  them  to  him. 
Let  him  judge  of  the  writer,  not  as  a  fault-finder, 
but  by  the  delight  which  is  the  proper  attendant 
of  great  sentiments.  Accustom  the  pupil  to  a 
solitude,  not  of  place,  but  of  thought.  Wean  him 
from  the  traditionary  judgments ;  save  him  wholly 


SETTLES  IN  CONCORD.  235 

from  that  barren  season  of  discipline  which  young 
men  spend  with  the  Aikens  and  Ketts  and  Drakes 
and  Blairs  ;  acquiring  the  false  doctrine  that  there 
is  something  arbitrary  or  conventional  in  letters, 
something  else  in  style  than  the  transparent  me- 
dium through  which  we  should  see  new  and  good 
thoughts. 

"  Another  want  that  literature  feels  in  this 
country  is  that  of  companionship.  If  something 
like  the  union  of  like-minded  men  were  attempted, 
as  formerly  at  Wills'  or  Button's  coffee-houses,  or 
in  the  back  room  of  the  bookseller's  shop,  where 
the  scholar  might  meet  scholars  without  passing 
the  picquet  and  guard-posts  of  etiquette,  it  would 
add  happy  hours  to  the  year." 

Though  Emerson  was  a  new  resident  in  Concord, 
he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Concord  peo- 
ple long  since,  at  the  Manse  or  with  Dr.  Eipley  in 
his  chaise  upon  his  rounds  of  parish  calls  ;  and  it 
was  not  as  a  stranger,  but  as  a  townsman,  that  he 
was  called  upon  in  September  for  a  discourse  on  the 
second  centennial  anniversary  of  the  incorporation 
of  the  town.1  Some  of  the  minute-men  of  Con- 
cord Fight  sat  by  his  side  on  the  platform.  He 
prepared  himself  by  diligent  reading  of  the  printed 
sources  of  information,  spending  a  fortnight  at 
Cambridge  for  this  purpose,  and  studied  the  town 

1  Collected  Writings,  xi.  31. 


236  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

records  in  the  crabbed  manuscript ;  besides  visit- 
ing, in  company  with  Dr.  Ripley,  some  of  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  skirmish  at  the  bridge,  in  order  to 
collect  their  reminiscences.  He  also  drew  some  in- 
teresting particulars  from  the  diaries  of  his  grand- 
father, William  Emerson. 

Two  days  after  the  address  he  drove  to  Ply- 
mouth, and  was  married.  A  lady,  then  a  little 
girl,  who  accompanied  him  as  far  as  Boston  on  his 
drive,  remembers  that  the  stable-keeper,  no  doubt 
in  honor  of  the  bridal  journey,  had  furnished  him 
for  the  occasion  with  a  pair  of  new  reins  of  yellow 
webbing.  Emerson,  noticing  them,  stopped  at  the 
stable  and  had  them  changed.  "  Why,  child,  the 
Pilgrims  of  old  Plymouth  will  think  we  have 
stopped  by  the  wayside  and  gathered  golden-rods 
to  weave  the  reins  with."  The  marriage  took  place 
at  the  Winslow  house,  a  well-preserved  colonial 
mansion  belonging  to  Miss  Jackson,  who  had  pro- 
posed that  they  should  live  there.  But  he  could 
not  leave  Concord.  "  I  must  win  you  [he  writes 
to  her  during  their  engagement]  to  love  it.  I  am 
born  a  poet,  —  of  a  low  class  without  doubt,  yet  a 
poet.  That  is  my  nature  and  vocation.  My  sing- 
ing, be  sure,  is  very  husky,  and  is  for  the  most  part 
in  prose.  Still  I  am  a  poet  in  the  sense  of  a  per- 
ceiver  and  dear  lover  of  the  harmonies  that  are 
in  the  soul  and  in  matter,  and  specially  of  the 
correspondences  between  these  and  those.  A  sun- 


SETTLES  IN  CONCORD.  237 

set,  a  forest,  a  snow-storm,  a  certain  river-view,  are 
more  to  me  than  many  friends,  and  do  ordinarily 
divide  my  day  with  my  books.  Wherever  I  go, 
therefore,  I  guard  and  study  my  rambling  propen- 
sities. .  .  .  Now  Concord  is  only  one  of  a  hundred 
towns  in  which  I  could  find  these  necessary  objects, 
but  Plymouth,  I  fear,  is  n»t  «ne.  Plymouth  is 
streets."  As  if  there  were  no  woods  or  sunsets  in 
Plymouth !  But  the  attractions  of  Concord  were 
too  strong.  In  Concord,  accordingly,  they  set  up 
housekeeping ;  Emerson  got  his  study  arranged, 
and  settled  down  to  the  manner  of  life  from  which 
he  never  afterwards  departed.  There  was  a  small 
flower-garden  already  laid  out,  in  which  Mrs.  Emer- 
son established  her  favorite  plants  from  Plymouth ; 
and  there  was  also  a  vegetable-garden,  where  Em- 
erson began  his  husbandry,  leaving  his  study  to  do 
a  little  work  there  every  day.  While  thus  en- 
gaged one  day  in  the  following  spring,  one  of  his 
townsmen  came  to  warn  him  that  a  stray  pig  was 
doing  mischief  in  the  neighboring  grounds.  He 
then  learned  that  he  had  been  appointed  one  of 
the  hog-reeves  for  the  year,  according  to  the  town 
custom,  which  pointed  out  newly  married  men  as 
particularly  eligible  for  that  office. 

In  November  he  undertook  to  supply  the  pulpit 
at  East  Lexington,  near  Concord,  and  usually 
preached  there  for  the  next  three  years.  In  the  win- 
ter (1835-36),  by  invitation  of  the  Society  for  the 


238  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge,  he  gave  at  the  Ma- 
sonic Temple  in  Boston  a  course  of  ten  lectures 
on  English  Literature ;  or  rather,  as  he  put  it, 
"  On  Topics  connected  with  English  Literature :  " 
the  first  of  those  courses  which  afterwards,  in  some 
memories,  lent  an  air  of  dignity  to  that  somewhat 
grotesque  edifice.  Availing  himself  of  the  large- 
ness of  the  announcement,  he  made  the  lectures  the 
vehicle  of  the  matter  he  had  most  at  heart. 

Literature,  he  says  in  his  introduction,  is  the 
record  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  prevalence  of 
ideas.  These  invisible  natures  make  every  man 
what  he  is.  His  whole  action  and  endeavor  in  the 
world  is  to  utter  them,  in  various  ways,  of  which 
the  most  perfect  is  language.  It  is  the  nature,  not 
of  any  particular  man,  but  of  man,  to  think.  Stand- 
ing at  the  point  between  spirit  and  matter,  and  na- 
tive of  both  elements,  he  knows  that  the  one  re- 
presents the  other.  But  human  history  and  our  own 
lives  lie  too  close  to  us.  Custom  makes  us  regard 
our  relations  to  objects  as  immovably  fixed.  The 
thinker  takes  us  apart  from  them,  and  shows  us 
the  passage  ot  things  and  events  as  a  spectacle,  a 
series  of  figures  in  which  the  whole  of  spiritual 
nature  is  successively  illustrated.  Poets,  orators, 
and  philosophers  have  been  those  who  could  most 
sharply  see  and  most  happily  present  emblems, 
parables,  in  the  objects  which  nature  puts  before 
the  senses.  Seeing  everything  as  it  rightly  is,  re- 


SETTLES  IN  CONCORD.  239 

lated  to  the  whole  and  partaking  its  perfection,  the 
poet  discovers  to  us  the  beauty  that  is  concealed 
beneath  the  every-day  aspect  of  things ;  and  the 
utterance  of  his  thought  to  men  proves  his  faith 
that  all  men  can  receive  them,  that  all  men  are 
poets,  though  in  a  less  degree. 

In  the  succeeding  lectures  he  treats  of  the  origin 
of  the  English  people  and  the  permanent  traits  of 
the  national  genius.  After  some  specimens  of  the 
Welsh  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  and  some  re- 
marks on  the  Age  of  Fable,  he  takes,  as  illustra- 
tive figures,  Chaucer,  Shakspeare,  Lord  Bacon, 
Ben  Jonson,  Herrick,  George  Herbert,  Sir  Henry 
Wotton ;  then  the  ethical  writers,  exemplified 
by  Milton,  Lord  Clarendon,  and  Dr.  Johnson. 
He  closes  with  a  lecture  on  the  literature  of 
the  day  (with  the  exclusion  of  living  writers),  — 
Byron,  Scott,  Coleridge,  Dugald  Stewart,  Sir 
James  Mackintosh.  Byron's  chief  value  is  that  of 
a  rhetorician ;  Coleridge  is  a  critic  rather  than  a 
poet.  Emerson's  judgment  of  Scott  anticipates 
by  a  year  or  two  that  of  Carlyle.  Scott,  he  says, 
is  the  most  lovable  of  men,  and  entitled  to  the 
world's  gratitude  for  the  entertainment  he  has 
given  to  solitude,  the  relief  to  headache  and  heart- 
ache ;  but  he  is  not  sufficiently  alive  to  ideas  to 
be  a  great  man.  Strong  sense  he  has,  humor, 
fancy,  humanity ;  but  of  imagination,  in  the  high 
sense,  little  or  nothing.  Lear,  Hamlet,  Kichard, 


240  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

are  sublime  from  themselves ;  Ravenswood  and 
Meg  Merrilies  only  from  situation  and  costume. 
Jeanie  Deans  and  Balfour  of  Burley  certainly  have 
an  interest  from  character  also  ;  but  it  is  not  very 
deep,  and  we  do  not  remember  anything  they  say. 
Burns,  Campbell,  and  Moore,  the  favorites  of  Em- 
erson's boyhood,  are  passed  over.  In  the  intro- 
duction and  in  the  concluding  pages  there  is  much 
that  was  printed  soon  afterwards  in  "  Nature." 

The  course  made  a  marked  impression,  and  se- 
cured Emerson's  welcome  as  a  lecturer  thenceforth. 
For  a  survey  of  English  literature  it  was  obvi- 
ously inadequate,  but  Emerson's  hearers  soon  dis- 
covered that  the  announced  subject  had  but  little 
to  do  with  the  matter ;  and  the  lovers  of  good 
literature  were  consoled  by  the  copious  extracts 
with  which  the  lectures  were  interspersed.  The 
peculiar  charm  of  Emerson's  reading  was  now 
made  known  to  a  larger  circle.  One  of  his  hearers 
of  that  time  told  me  that  she  still  remembered  and 
associated  with  Emerson's  voice  and  manner  some 
verses  of  Crabbe  which  she  then  heard  for  the 
first  time ;  very  likely  other  writers  not  mentioned 
in  the  manuscript  were  introduced. 

In  the  early  part  of  1836  Emerson  furnished  the 
copy  and  a  preface  for  the  publication  (set  on  foot 
by  Dr.  Le  Baron  Russell)  of  Carlyle's  "Sartor 
Resartus  "  as  a  book  by  itself,  and  before  the  end  of 
the  year  was  able  to  announce  to  Carlyle  the  sale 


SETTLES  IN  CONCORD.  241 

of  the  whole  edition.  Another  edition  of  above  a 
thousand  copies  was  sold  before  it  was  collected 
in  England. 

Emerson  was  not  among  the  enthusiasts  for 
"  Sartor  "  when  it  first  appeared  here ;  his  preface, 
some  of  them  thought,  was  timid  and  superfluously 
apologetic ;  and  when  I  tried,  long  afterwards,  to 
recall  to  him  the  stir  the  book  made  in  the  minds  of 
some  of  the  younger  men,  he  hesitated,  and  said  he 
supposed  he  had  got  all  that  earlier,  from  Coleridge. 
He  was  in  full  sympathy  with  the  ideas,  but  the 
"  masquerade  "  under  which  they  were  presented 
was  so  displeasing  to  him  as  to  make  him  doubt- 
ful how  it  would  be  received  if  reprinted  here. 
"  O  Carlyle !  [he  writes  in  his  diary]  the  merit  of 
glass  is  not  to  be  seen,  but  to  be  seen  through ;  but 
every  crystal  and  lamina  of  the  Carlyle  glass 
shows." 

He  remonstrates  with  him  upon  his  "  defying 
diction"  in  the  letter1  which  begins  the  correspon- 
dence which  lasted  throughout  their  working  lives, 
always  sustained,  in  spite  of  their  dissimilarities  of 
temperament,  by  a  steady  good-will  and  a  personal 
attachment  on  both  sides.  "  My  affection  for  that 
man  [Emerson  writes  in  his  journal]  really  incapac- 
itates me  from  reading  his  book.  The  pages  which 

1  May  14,  1834.  The  Correspondence  of  Thomas  Carlyle  and 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  [Edited  by  Professor  Charles  Eliot 
Norton.  Boston,  1883 :  i.  11. 


242  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

to  others  look  so  rich  and  alluring,  to  me  have  a 
frigid  and  marrowless  air  for  the  warm  hand  and 
heart  I  have  an  estate  in,  and  the  living  eye  of 
which  I  can  almost  discern  across  the  sea  some 
sparkles.  In  the  windy  night,  in  the  sordid  day, 
out  of  banks  and  bargains  and  disagreeable  busi- 
ness [connected  with  the  reprinting  of  Carlyle's 
books],  I  espy  you,  and  run  to  my  pleasant 
thoughts." 

And  Carlyle,  on  his  side,  many  years  afterwards 
(in  1875),  when  their  correspondence  had  ceased, 
writing  to  Emerson's  daughter,  Mrs.  Forbes,  to 
assure  her  that  her  father's  letters  should  be  sent 
to  her,  says :  — 

"  I  wish  you  had  told  me  something  about  your 
father's  health  and  procedures  in  these  his  years  of 
rest,  but  I  always  vaguely  hear  from  time  to  time 
that  he  still  keeps  his  health  tolerably  ;  and  of  his 
constant  friendship  to  me,  and  the  kind  of  silent 
but  sacred  covenant  that  exists  between  us  two  to 
the  end,  and  has  at  all  times  been  so  precious  to 
me,  I  never  have  any  questioning." 

It  was  doubtless  fortunate  that  Carlyle  never 
came  to  America,  as  Emerson  hoped  he  would, 
for  upon  a  close  approach  the  antagonism  of  their 
natures  might  have  asserted  itself  too  strongly. 
Even  at  a  distance  it  sometimes  made  itself  felt, 
especially  at  the  time  of  our  civil  war.  "  How  can 
I  write  to  you?  [Emerson  says  in  a  fragment  of 


SETTLES  IN  CONCORD.  243 

a  letter,  perhaps  never  sent.]  Your  mood  is  not 
mine,  and  you  choose  to  sit  like  Destiny  at  the 
door  of  nations  and  predict  calamity,  and  contra- 
dict your  morale,  and  with  irresistible  wit  and  ridi- 
cule shatter  the  attempts  of  little  men  at  charity  and 
humanity,  and  uphold  the  offender.  But  strength 
is  strength,  and  comes  always  from  God,  and  so  is 
at  base  divine  and  to  issues  divine." 

And  in  the  rough  draft  of  a  letter  in  1870  he 
speaks  for  "  a  multitude  of  good  men,  your  friends, 
who  love  and  fear  you,  and  believe  that  the  Heaven 
which  inspired  you  gave  you  a  keener  perception 
of  the  faults  than  of  the  good-wills  of  men,  both 
east  and  west.  ...  I  think  of  you  as  carrying  a 
trumpet  confided  to  you  by  some  of  the  elder  an- 
gels, to  signify  by  its  blasts  in  Fontarabian  echoes 
that  an  empire  and  a  republic  are  to  fall.  Well, 
your  eloquent  warning  voice  will  do  no  harm. 
The  evils  you  stigmatize  are  real  and  poisonous 
enough,  but  not  the  less  the  balance  has  been,  is, 
and  will  be  kept.  In  this  country  we  are  greedy 
of  gain  as  others,  and  with  manifold  more  oppor- 
tunities and  avenues  than  others." 

Deep  as  was  the  divergence,  there  was  a  deeper 
region  in  which,  as  Carlyle  said,  they  came  to- 
gether. In  spite  of  some  hasty  expressions  on 
either  side,  it  is  certain,  I  think,  that  there  was  never 
any  estrangement;  to  the  last  Emerson  spoke  of 
Carlyle  with  affection,  and  to  the  last  it  was  fully 
returned. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

IN  a  letter  to  Carlyle  (March  12,  1835),1  Em- 
erson speaks  of  a  journal,  to  be  called  The  Tran- 
scendentalist,  which  "  some  young  men"  are  propos- 
ing to  issue.  One  of  those  young  men,  who,  in 
the  tranquil  vision  of  age,  has  not  forgotten  the 
dreams  of  his  youth,  the  Reverend  Dr.  Frederic 
Henry  Hedge,  has  most  kindly  furnished  me  with 
an  account  of  the  scheme  as  it  shaped  itself  at  a 
somewhat  later  period  :  — 

"  In  September,  1836,  on  the  day  of  the  cele- 
bration of  the  second  centennial  anniversary  of 
Harvard  College,  Mr.  Emerson,  George  Ripley,  and 
myself,  with  one  other,  chanced  to  confer  together 
on  the  state  of  current  opinion  in  theology  and 
philosophy,  which  we  agreed  in  thinking  very  un- 
satisfactory. Could  anything  be  done  in  the  way 
of  protest  and  introduction  of  deeper  and  broader 
views  ?  What  precisely  we  wanted  it  would  have 
been  difficult  for  either  of  us  to  state.  What  we 
strongly  felt  was  dissatisfaction  with  the  reigning 
sensuous  philosophy,  dating  from  Locke,  on  which 

1  Carlyle-Emerson  Correspondence,  i.  48. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  245 

our  Unitarian  theology  was  based.  The  writings 
of  Coleridge,  recently  edited  by  Marsh,  and  soine 
of  Carlyle's  earlier  essays,  especially  the  '  Charac- 
teristics '  and  the  '  Signs  of  the  Times,'  had  cre- 
ated a  ferment  in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  young 
clergy  of  that  day.  There  was  a  promise  in  the 
air  of  a  new  era  of  intellectual  life.  We  four 
concluded  to  call  a  few  like-minded  seekers  to- 
gether on  the  following  week.  Some  dozen  of  us 
met  in  Boston,  at  the  house,  I  believe,  of  Mr.  Rip- 
ley.  Among  them  I  recall  the  names  of  Orestes 
Brownson  (not  yet  turned  Romanist),  Cyrus  Bar- 
tol,  Theodore  Parker,  and  Wheeler  and  Bartlett, 
tutors  in  Harvard  College.  There  was  some  dis- 
cussion, but  no  conclusion  reached,  on  the  question 
whether  it  were  best  to  start  a  new  journal  as  the 
organ  of  our  views,  or  to  work  through  those  al- 
ready existing.  The  next  meeting,  in  the  same 
month,  was  held  by  invitation  of  Emerson,  at  his 
house  in  Concord.  A  large  number  assembled ; 
besides  some  of  those  who  met  in  Boston,  I  remem- 
ber Mr.  Alcott,  John  S.  Dwight,  Ephraim  Pea- 
body,  Dr.  Convers  Francis,  Mrs.  Sarah  Ripley, 
Miss  Elizabeth  Peabody,  Margaret  Fuller,  Caleb 
Stetson,  James  Freeman  Clarke.  These  were  the 
earliest  of  a  series  of  meetings  held  from  time  to 
time,  as  occasion  prompted,  for  seven  or  eight  years. 
Jones  Very  was  one  of  those  who  occasionally  at- 
tended ;  H.  D.  Thoreau  another.  There  was  no 


246  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

club,  properly  speaking;  no  organization,  no  pre- 
siding officer,  no  vote  ever  taken.  How  the  name 
*  Transcendental,'  given  to  these  gatherings  and  the 
set  of  persons  who  took  part  in  them,  originated,  I 
cannot  say.  It  certainly  was  never  assumed  by  the 
persons  so  called.  I  suppose  I  was  the  only  one 
who  had  any  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  Ger- 
man transcendental  philosophy,  at  the  start.  The 
Dial  was  the  product  of  the  movement,  and  in 
some  sort  its  organ." 

Earlier  than  this,  in  June,  1835,  I  find  in  Em- 
erson's journal  the  beginning  of  an  attempt  to 
expound  the  "  First  Philosophy  ;  "  that  is,  he  says, 
the  original  laws  of  the  mind,  the  science  of  what 
is,  in  distinction  from  what  appears. 

"  They  resemble  great  circles  in  astronomy ; 
each  of  which,  in  what  direction  soever  it  be  drawn, 
contains  the  whole  sphere.  These  laws  are  ideas 
of  Reason ;  they  astonish  the  Understanding,  and 
seem  to  it  gleams  of  a  world  in  which  we  do  not 
live.  Our  compound  nature  differences  us  from 
God,  but  our  reason  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  Divine  Essence.  To  call  it  ours  seems  an  im- 
pertinence, so  absolute  and  unconfined  is  it.  The 
best  we  can  say  of  God  we  mean  of  the  mind  as  it 
is  known  to  us.  Time  and  space  are  below  its 
sphere ;  it  considers  things  according  to  more  inti- 
mate properties  ;  it  beholds  their  essence,  wherein 
is  seen  what  they  can  produce.  It  is  in  all  men, 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  247 

even  the  worst,  and  constitutes  them  men.  In  bad 
men  it  is  dormant,  in  the  good  efficient ;  but  it  is 
perfect  and  identical  in  all,  underneath  the  pecu- 
liarities, the  vices,  and  the  errors  of  the  individual. 
Compared  with  the  self-existence  of  the  laws  of 
truth  and  right,  of  which  he  is  conscious,  his  per- 
sonality is  a  parasitic,  deciduous  atom.  The  Un- 
derstanding is  the  executive  faculty,  the  hand  of 
the  mind.  It  mediates  between  the  soul  and  inert 
matter.  It  works  in  time  and  space,  and  therefore 
successively.  The  ideas  of  Reason  assume  a  new 
appearance  as  they  descend  into  the  Understand- 
ing ;  they  walk  in  masquerade.  Reason,  seeing  in 
objects  their  remote  effects,  affirms  the  effect  as 
the  permanent  character.  The  Understanding,  lis- 
tening to  Reason  on  one  side,  which  saith,  It  is, 
and  to  the  senses  on  their  side,  which  say,  It  is  not, 
takes  middle  ground,  and  declares,  It  will  be. 
Heaven  is  the  projection  of  the  ideas  of  Reason 
on  the  plane  of  the  Understanding.  The  Under- 
standing accepts  the  oracle,  but,  with  its  short 
sight  not  apprehending  the  truth,  declares  that  in 
futurity  it  is  so,  and  adds  all  manner  of  fables  of 
its  own.  What  a  benefit  if  a  rule  could  be  given 
whereby  the  mind,  dreaming  amidst  the  gross  fogs 
of  matter,  could  at  any  moment  east  itself  and  find 
the  sun  !  But  the  common  life  is  an  endless  suc- 
cession of  phantasms,  and  long  after  we  have 
dreamed  ourselves  recovered  aud  sound,  light 


248  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

breaks  in  upon  us,  and  we  find  we  have  yet  had  no 
sane  hour.  Another  morn  rises  on  inid-noon." 

He  did  not  proceed  far  with  the  attempt  to  write 
out  in  plain  prose  the  fundamentals  of  Transcen- 
dentalism. They  are  to  be  felt  as  sentiments,  re- 
ligious emotions,  or  grasped  by  the  imagination  in 
poetic  wholes,  rather  than  set  down  in  propositions. 
For  himself,  at  any  rate,  a  freer  mode  of  speech 
was  needed.  This  he  attempted  in  "  Nature." 

In  September,  1833,  a  day  or  two  after  he  sailed 
from  Liverpool,  Emerson  writes  in  his  journal : 
"  I  like  my  book  about  nature,  and  I  wish  I  knew 
where  and  how  I  ought  to  live.  God  will  show 
me."  The  book  about  nature  was  no  doubt  in 
its  main  lines  the  first  part  of  the  little  volume 
published  three  years  later  under  that  title :  "  the 
first  clear  manifesto,"  says  Mr.  Norton,  "  of  Em- 
erson's genius  ; "  and  the  first  document,  we  may 
say,  of  that  remarkable  outburst  of  Kom  antic  ism 
on  Puritan  ground,  "  the  Transcendental  move- 
ment." 

The  Boston  or  New  England  Transcendentalism 
had,  as  Dr.  Hedge  says,  no  very  direct  connection 
with  the  transcendental  philosophy  of  Germany, 
the  philosophy  of  Kant  and  his  successors.  Kant's 
distinction  of  the  transcendental  ideas,  —  the  ideas 
of  Reason,  whose  objects  are  God,  the  soul,  and 
nature  as  a  whole,  —  from  the  finite  conceptions  of 
the  Understanding,  was  eagerly  caught  up,  mostly 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  249 

through  Coleridge,  by  young  and  ardent  persons  in 
this  country,  especially  among  the  younger  Uni- 
tarian ministers,  because  it  fell  in  with  their  own 
assurance  of  a  more  direct  and  intimate  mode  of 
access  to  things  unseen  and  eternal  than  was  ad- 
mitted by  the  prevailing  Nominalism.  They  did 
not  pay  much  regard  to  Kant's  warning  that  these 
ideas,  though  of  the  highest  value  for  the  regula- 
tion of  conduct,  do  not  constitute  knowledge,  since 
we  have  no  means  of  testing  their  correctness.  The 
transcendental  consciousness  was  its  own  evidence, 
and  needed  no  verification.  The  transcendental 
was  whatever  lay  beyond  the  stock  notions  and 
traditional  beliefs  to  which  adherence  was  expected 
because  they  were  generally  accepted  by  sensible 
persons.  Some  of  the  neophytes  made  perhaps  a 
little  too  much  parade  of  the  transcendental  con- 
sciousness, and  society  took  its  revenge  by  the  nick- 
name Transcendentalists,  applied  without  much 
discrimination  to  all  who  pretended  to  look  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  established  opinion  and  practice. 
The  occasional  meetings  of  a  changing  body  of 
liberal  thinkers,  agreeing  in  nothing  but  their  lib- 
erality, received  from  the  public  the  name  of  the 
Transcendental  club ;  though,  says  Dr.  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  one  of  the  original  members,  they 
called  themselves  "  the  club  of  the  like-minded ; 
I  suppose  because  no  two  of  us  thought  alike."  Or 
rather,  we  may  say,  because,  in  spite  of  all  differ- 


250  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

ences  of  opinion,  they  were  united  by  a  common 
impatience  of  routine  thinking. 

There  was  little  attention  among  them  to  the 
German  or  to  any  systematic  metaphysics,  yet 
there  was,  I  think,  a  coincidence  with  what  is  per- 
haps deepest  in  Kant :  at  least,  Kant's  intimations 
concerning  the  Practical  Reason,  as  an  impulse 
constantly  urging  us  to  enlarge  the  conceptions  of 
the  Understanding,  appear  to  agree  well  enough 
with  Emerson's  definition  of  Transcendentalism  as 
"  the  feeling  of  the  Infinite  ;  "  and  his  statement 
("  Nature,"  p.  59)  of  the  problem  of  philosophy, 
'*  for  all  that  exists  conditionally  to  find  a  ground 
unconditioned  and  absolute,"  referred  by  him  to 
Plato,  seems  to  belong  rather  to  Kant.  However 
this  may  be,'  it  was  the  feeling  that  the  world  is  no- 
where "  nailed  up  with  boards,"  but  open  on  all 
sides,  if  we  will  but  open  our  eyes,  —  an  intolerance 
of  authority  and  convention,  and  not  any  definite 
opinions  they  had  in  common,  —  that  brought  the 
Transcendentalists  together. 

Mere  agreement  in  dissent,  however,  in  a  com- 
munity where  the  penalties  of  dissent  were  upon 
the  whole  so  light,  would  not  have  been  sufficient 
of  itself  to  develop  so  much  heat  of  sympathy  and 
enthusiasm.  Something  more  was  at  work :  but 
when  we  try  to  come  closer  to  the  secret  of  Tran- 
scendentalism we  are  met  on  all  sides  by  the  asser- 
tion that  it  was  faith  in  intuitions  ;  the  claim  of  a 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  251 

direct  discernment  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and 
the  right,  in  place  of  the  slow  and  circuitous  pro- 
cess of  inductive  reasoning.  This  was  the  charge 
brought  against  the  new  heresy,  and  it  could  be 
abundantly  supported  from  the  writings  of  the 
chief  heresiarch.  "  Revere  your  intuitions  ;  "  "  To 
the  involuntary  perceptions  a  perfect  faith  is  due :  " 
in  such  phrases  Emerson  abounds. 

If  this  were  all,  if  the  claim  was  that  our  feel- 
ing that  a  proposition  is  true  is  sufficient  proof  of 
its  truth,  the  answer  would  be  easy ;  so  easy  that 
the  unwearied  demonstrations  from  that  time  to 
this  of  the  insufficiency  of  unverified  intuitions,  and 
the  absurdity  of  setting  up  our  own  opinions  and 
sentiments  as  the  standards  of  truth  or  of  right, 
would  seem  to  be  superfluous.  Reliance  on  intui- 
tions in  this  sense  would  mean  self-conceit,  or  at 
the  best  an  exaggerated  regard  for  one's  own  spi- 
ritual experiences.  There  was  no  doubt  a  good  deal 
of  both  among  the  Transcendentalists,  for  they 
were  innovators,  and  this  circumstance  naturally 
attracted  a  good  deal  of  their  attention  to  them- 
selves. But  Transcendentalism  was  too  considerable 
a  fact  to  be  disposed  of  by  reducing  it  to  egotism 
or  sentimentalism.  Applied  to  Emerson,  the  most 
prominent  figure  among  the  Transcendentalists, 
such  a  description,  every  one  will  feel,  would  be 
preposterous.  Nothing  was  more  foreign  to  him 
than  idolatry  of  his  opinions  or  his  moods.  Gate- 


252  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

gorical  as  he  often  is  in  his  statements,  there  never 
was  a  man  more  free  from  the  distemper  incident, 
he  says,  "  to  eminent  spiritualists,  the  incapacity  of 
putting  their  act  or  word  aloof  from  them,  and  see- 
ing it  bravely  for  the  nothing  it  is."  l 

Intuition,  with  him,  means  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  infallible  knowledge  ;  it  means,  to  use 
his  own  words,  the  openness  of  the  human  mind 
to  new  influx  of  light  and  power  from  the  Divine 
Mind.  His  reverence  for  intuitions  and  his  dis- 
trust of  reasoning  were  only  the  preference  of  truth 
over  our  past  apprehension  of  truth.  Reasoning, 
in  the  sense  in  which  he  contrasted  it  with  intui- 
tion, is  the  application  of  a  rule  taken  from  past 
experience,  the  drawing  of  a  circle  with  a  given 
radius.  But  such  is  the  convenience  of  a  rule  that 
we  are  apt  to  imagine  that  it  adds  something  to 
the  experience  on  which  it  is  founded.  We  shut 
ourselves  up  in  creeds,  in  scientific  formulas,  in  gen- 
eral maxims  which  we  have  found  sufficient ;  in 
short,  we  draw  a  circle,  and  then  assume  that  be- 
cause no  other  can  be  drawn  with  that  radius,  no 
other  can  be  drawn.  We  stop  thinking,  and  then 
appeal  to  reason  to  justify  us. 

Reverence  for  intuitions  meant  to  Emerson  re- 
sistance to  the  sleep  that  is  apt  to  come  over  our 
spiritual  faculties,  making  us  insensible  to  the  un- 
failing intimations  that  nothing  in  this  world  i« 
1  "Conduct  of  Life."  Collected  Writings,  vi.  129. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  253 

final;  that  all  conclusions  are  provisional,  all  ends 
momentary ;  that  the  best  must  be  superseded  by 
a  better.  The  health  of  the  soul,  he  thought,  con- 
sists in  obedience,  unobstructed  reception.  Be- 
yond this  he  did  not  attempt  to  go  in  the  way  of 
doctrine.  The  positive  conditions  of  our  reception 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  (for  it  is  hardly  enough  to 
say  that  it  is  involuntary)  he  did  not  undertake 
to  state.  Such  a  statement  would  have  been  a 
philosophy ;  but  Transcendentalism  was  not  a  phi- 
losophy ;  it  was  a  religious  revival,  "  a  wave  of  sen- 
timent," Mr.  Frothingham  happily  calls  it,1  such 
as  from  time  to  time  had  stirred  the  rigid  surface 
of  Puritan  thought  with  a  hint  of  smothered  fires. 
In  order  to  trace  the  history  of  transcendental- 
ism in  New  England  it  would  be  needful  to  look 
back  to  the  very  beginnings  of  the  colony,  and  to 
note  the  various  outbursts  of  religious  enthusiasm 
overflowing  the  boundaries  of  accredited  doctrine, 
in  Antinomianisrn,  Anabaptism,  Quakerism  ;  and 
in  the  revival  of  a  more  fervent  spirit  in  Calvin- 
ism by  Whitefield  and  the  "  new  lights,"  who  wor- 
ried Dr.  Chauncy  and  his  Arminian  brethren  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  their  pre- 
tensions to  an  immediate  knowledge  of  divine  , 
truth,  "  not  upon  reason  and  evidence,  but  through 
a  secret  impulse  in  the  soul,"  —  very  much  as  the 

1  Transcendentalism  in  New   England.     By  Octavius   Brooks 
Frothingham.    New  York,  1876  :  p.  355. 


254  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

new  lights  a  century  later  worried  the  Unitarian 
leaders  by  their  appeals  to  consciousness  and  the 
sacredness  of  intuitions.  In  all  these  cases  the 
heresy  was  the  more  intolerable  because  what  was 
claimed  was  not  so  much  the  discovery  of  new  truths 
as  a  livelier  apprehension  of  the  old ;  a  pretension 
which  could  not  be  summarily  set  aside,  since  it 
was  after  all  a  characteristic  of  Protestantism,  nay 
of  Christianity,  which  in  its  beginnings  had  al- 
ways appealed  to  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
breast  of  the  individual  believer,  against  all  offi- 
cial reason  and  evidence.  Especially  Unitarianigm 
(or  Liberal  Christianity,  as  some  of  its  eminent 
supporters  preferred  to  call  it)  was  justified,  if  it 
was  justified  at  all,  in  its  rejection  of  the  funda- 
mental dogma  of  the  Church,  by  the  superior  au- 
thority of  conscience  and  common  sense  in  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture. 

The  earlier  transcendentalisms  in  New  England 
had  been  stifled  or  reduced  to  inoffensive  propor- 
tions by  the  nature  of  the  situation,  which  allowed 
no  discussion  of  fundamentals.  The  Whitefield 
revival,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  reaction;  the 
expiring  effort  of  a  spirit  that  was  well-nigh  spent, 
and  could  only  create  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream  that  was  steadily  bearing  down  towards  a 
new  order  of  things. 

To  the  devout  Puritan  the  earth  was  "  the  scaf- 
fold of  the  divine  vengeance ; "  all  enjoyment  and 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  255 

success  were  adjourned  to  another  world ;  the  chief 
business  of  this  was  to  take  to  heart  our  inherent 
worthlessness  and  the  worthlessness  of  all  earthly 
things.  This  was  his  theodicy  5  his  justification 
of  the  ways  of  God  to  man ;  the  only  hypothesis 
upon  which  he  could  reconcile  his  faith  with  the 
actual  state  of  society.  To  the  comfortable  New 
England  citizen  of  the  later  time  the  earth  pre- 
sented no  such  aspect :  men  had  run  to  and  fro,  and 
knowledge  was  increased,  and  wealth;  there  was 
outward  security  and  unexampled  prosperity;  so- 
ciety was  settled  upon  a  rational  basis,  readily 
admitting  improvement ;  the  arts  of  life  connected 
the  little  community  with  the  rest  of  the  civilized 
world ;  and  with  all  this  the  stern  Puritan  concentra- 
tion upon  another  state  of  existence  was  fast  disap- 
pearing. In  those  in  whom  it  still  survived,  like 
Mary  Moody  Emerson,  it  was,  as  she  partly  felt,  an 
anachronism.  To  the  well-to-do  Boston  merchant  or 
professional  man  this  world  was  a  very  good  place ; 
and  it  would  have  been  mere  affectation  in  him  to 
pretend  to  realize  to  his  own  mind  the  ancestral 
formulas  of  wrath  and  denunciation.  They  had 
faded  out  into  symbols ;  still  venerable  from  asso- 
ciation, but  no  longer  expressing  his  real  feelings. 
And  with  them  the  forms  of  worship  in  which 
they  had  been  expressed  had  lost  their  high  signifi- 
cance. Religion  was  becoming  more  and  more  the 
affair  of  Sundays  or  of  particular  occasions ;  it 


256  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

was  no  longer  the  idealism  of  every  day  and  of 
all  day;  and  the  efforts  of  pious  men  to  sup- 
ply, through  logical  proof  to  the  understanding, 
what  was  wanting  in  reality  and  self-evidence  to 
the  feelings,  could  only  hasten  the  process.  The. 
profound  mysticism  of  the  Calvinistic  theology 
gave  place  to  rationalistic  ways  of  thought,  to 
Arminianism,  to  Unitarianism,  and  in  these  shapes 
could  no  longer  retain  the  fervor  of  the  ancient 
faith. 

What  was  more  important  than  any  change  of 
opinions  was  the  changed  attitude  of  mind  towards 
the  whole  subject  of  religion.  The  other  world 
was  losing  its  reality,  —  so  much  was  clear ;  and 
it  was  a  symptom  of  tremendous  importance.  No 
wonder  if  to  a  devout  mind  it  seemed  that  the  very 
foundations  of  society  were  giving  way.  There  was, 
no  doubt,  some  exaggeration  in  speaking,  as  the 
committee  of  the  First  Church  did,  of  the  alarm- 
ing attacks  of  the  Learned  and  the  Witty  upon  our 
holy  religion.  The  attitude  of  the  learned  and  the 
witty  —  that  is,  of  the  more  instructed  and  refined 
part  of  the  community  —  towards  religion  was  not 
one  of  hostility,  but  rather  that  of  kindly  and  re- 
spectful indifference.  If,  like  Franklin,  they  had 
been  so  placed  as  to  feel  at  liberty  to  do  exactly  as 
they  pleased,  many  of  them,  no  doubt,  like  him, 
would  have  "  seldom  attended  any  publick  wor- 
ship ; "  but,  like  him,  they  would  have  had  "  an 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  257 

opinion  of  its  propriety  and  of  its  utility  when 
rightly  conducted."  But  what  they  called  public 
worship  was  dictated  rather  by  a  regard  for  de- 
corum than  by  religious  feeling.  They  would  have 
been  indignant  had  they  been  told  that  they  were 
living  without  God  in  the  world ;  but  they  had  not 
been  taught  to  think  of  God  as  actually  present  in 
this  world,  or  to  think  of  whatever  is  essentially 
admirable,  admirable  for  its  own  sake,  as  the  wit- 
ness of  his  presence.  Such  language  they  would 
have  thought  very  well  in  the  pulpit,  but  out  of 
place  and  suspicious  elsewhere.  There  was  no  ob- 
ject of  worship  in  their  lives  ;  nothing  the  supreme 
veneration  of  which  was  its  own  sufficient  recom- 
pense, as  the  love  of  God  had  been  to  their  fathers. 
The  Puritan  earnestness  had  not  died  out;  the 
sense  of  responsibility  was  as  lively  as  ever ;  but 
the  objects  towards  which  it  turned,  however  ex- 
cellent or  indispensable,  had  no  obvious  religious 
significance.  To  earn  one's  living  by  honest  labor ; 
to  be  pure,  upright,  charitable ;  to  be  a  good  son, 
father,  citizen,  —  these  things  were  essential  to  the 
well-being  of  society,  and  to  that  of  the  individual 
as  part  of  it ;  but  they  awakened  no  enthusiasm, 
gave  no  scope  for  self-devotion,  since  the  end  in 
view,  however  desirable,  came  short  of  the  ultimate 
and  total  welfare  of  the  individual ;  it  was  after  all 
something  that  he  might  conceivably  renounce.  To 
claim  for  it  the  sanction  of  religion  would  have 


258  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

been  felt  as  a  confusion  and  a  profanation.  That 
religion  should  be  "  the  means  merely  of  social, 
political,  or  any  earthly  good "  seemed  to  Miss 
Mary  Emerson  "  as  if  the  lover  should  use  a  sym- 
bol of  his  friend  to  ordinary  purposes."  This,  she 
admits,  "  looks  like  holy  nonsense  ;  "  yet  it  is  good 
sense  on  the  assumption  that  religion  is  concerned 
only  with  our  relations  to  another  world,  and  has 
nothing  to  do  with  this.  If  God  be  the  inhabitant 
of  another  sphere,  omnipotent,  of  course,  omnipre- 
sent in  power,  but  not  actually  intervening  here 
except  upon  special  occasions  and  through  miracu- 
lous agencies,  then  whatever  gives  importance  to 
the  things  of  this  world  may  be  suspicious.  Even 
piety  and  beneficence,  says  M.  M.  E.,  endear  life ; 
might  they  not  be  snares  to  our  feet  ? 

But  this  view  was  the  outgrowth  of  convictions 
that  were  now  past,  though  their  influence  still  con- 
tinued. The  relegation  of  the  objects  of  devotion 
to  another  world  was  the  expedient  of  a  sublime 
unwavering  conviction  that  would  not  let  its  ideals 
go,  but  could  find  no  place  for  them  on  earth. 
There  was  no  loss  of  faith  in  the  fading-out  of  this 
other-worldliness  in  the  dawn  of  the  conviction  that 
there  is  place  for  them  ;  that  the  heavenly  life 
does  not  require  us  to  leave  the  earth  nor  to  refuse 
ourselves  to  its  concerns,  but  only  to  take  care  that 
they  do  not  imprison  us  in  petty  satisfactions  and 
momentary  ends ;  to  find  in  them,  as  Emerson  said, 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  259 

outlets  and  occasions  worthy  of  the  faculties  we 
spend  upon  them.  Such  was  the  beatific  vision 
that  hovered  in  dim  poetic  distance  before  the  eyes 
of  the  Transcendentalists,  and  found  expression  in 
"  Nature." 

The  first  part  of  the  essay  appears  to  have  been 
for  some  time  in  hand.  This,  I  conjecture,  may 
comprise  the  first  five  chapters.  The  seventh  and 
eighth  chapters  (Spirit)  seem  to  have  been  written 
after  his  removal  to  Concord  ;  the  sixth,  Idealism, 
last  of  all,  as  the  connection  of  the  two.  He  writes 
to  his  brother  William  :  — 

CONCORD,  June  28,  1836. 

My  little  book  is  nearly  done.  Its  title  is  "  Na- 
ture." Its  contents  will  not  exceed  in  bulk  Samp- 
son Reed's  "  Growth  of  the  Mind."  My  design  is 
to  follow  it  by  another  essay,  "  Spirit,"  and  the 
two  shall  make  a  decent  volume. 

August  8.  The  book  of  "  Nature  "  still  lies  on 
the  table.  There  is  as  always  one  crack  in  it,  not 
easy  to  be  soldered  or  welded  ;  but  if  this  week  I 
should  be  left  alone,  I  may  finish  it. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  month  he  was  correct- 
ing the  proof-sheets,  and  it  was  published  in  Sep- 
tember. In  the  first  edition  was  prefixed  this  motto 
from  Plotinus  :  — 

"  Nature  is  but  an  image  or  imitation  of  wisdom, 
the  last  thing  of  the  soul :  Nature  being  a  thing 
which  doth  only  do,  but  not  know." 


260  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Nature,  or  the  existing  world,  is  the  realization 
of  the  Divine  Mind  in  time  and  space;  the  effect 
of  the  universal  cause.  Considered  in  itself,  or  as 
finality,  it  is  opaque,  brute,  unspiritual.  So  looked 
at,  nature  means  fate,  the  power  of  circumstance, 
the  bondage  of  the  spirit.  Man  regarded  as  part 
of  nature  is  the  victim  of  his  environment ;  of  race, 
temperament,  sex,  climate,  organization.  But  man 
is  hbt  simply  a  part  of  nature,  not  mere  effect,  but, 
potentially,  shares  the  cause.  His  mind  is  open 
on  one  side  to  the  Divine  Mind,  and,  in  virtue  of 
that  communication,  he  may  detach  himself  from 
nature,  and  behold  the  world  of  facts  aloof  and  as 
it  were  afloat.  To  thought  and  inspired  will  na- 
ture is  transparent  and  plastic.  Man,  when  he 
thinks,  is  placed  at  the  centre  of  beings,  where  a 
ray  of  relation  passes  from  every  other  being  to 
him  ;  every  natural  fact  is  seen  as  the  symbol  of  a 
spiritual  fact,  the  expression  of  a  thought  that  does 
not  stop  there,  but  goes  on  endlessly  to  embody  it- 
self in  higher  and  higher  forms.  When  he  sub- 
mits his  will  to  the  divine  inspiration,  he  becomes 
a  creator  in  the  finite.  If  he  is  disobedient,  if  he 
would  be  something  of  himself,  he  finds  all  things 
hostile  and  incomprehensible.  As  a  man  is,  so  he 
sees  and  so  he  does.  When  we  persist  in  disobe- 
dience, the  inward  ruin  is  reflected  in  the  world 
about  us.  When  we  yield  to  the  remedial  force  of 
spirit,  then  evil  is  no  more  seen. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  261 

"  Build,  therefore,"  he  concludes,  "  your  own 
world.  As  fast  as  you  conform  your  life  to  the 
pure  idea  in  your  rnind,  that  will  unfold  its  grand 
proportions.  A  correspondent  revolution  in  things 
will  attend  the  influx  of  the  spirit." 

To  Emerson  this  meant  that  our  lives,  so  far  as 
they  go  beyond  animal  existence,  are  made  what 
they  are  by  our  ideals,  our  growing  consciousness  «^ 
of  the  public,  universal  functions  which  are  shared 
by  all  things,  but  by  brutes  and  inanimate  crea- 
tures unconsciously,  and  therefore  without  the 
power  to  interfere  either  to  check  or  to  extend  \ 
them.  All  things  are  moral,  that  is,  endlessly 
serviceable ;  the  prerogative  of  man  is  to  feel  this 
infinity  within  him,  and  make  himself  its  willing  ^ 
instrument.  So  far  as  he  is  obedient  to  the  heav- 
enly vision  he  sees  it  realized  about  him,  even  in 
things  called  evil ;  for  he  sees  that  the  disagreeable 
appearances,  the  dislocation  and  failure  in  his  own 
fortunes  or  in  the  world  about  him,  only  reflect  his 
want  of  faith  in  the  eternal  beneficent  necessity 
that  is  always  bringing  things  right,  through  the 
ruin  of  whatever  is  opposed  to  it. 

The  little  book  did  not  attract  many  readers ; 
only  a  few  hundred  copies  were  sold,  and  it  was 
twelve  years  before  a  new  edition  was  called  for. 
Mr.  Frothingham  says  it  was  violently  attacked 
upon  its  first  appearance ;  by  the  representatives, 
I  suppose,  of  orthodox  opinion.  By  the  Christian 


262  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

Examiner,  the  chief  organ  of  the  Unitarians,  it 
was  treated  rather  indulgently,  as  a  poetical  rhap- 
sody, containing  much  beautiful  writing  and  not 
devoid  of  sound  philosophy,  but,  on  the  whole, 
producing  the  impression  of  a  disordered  dream. 
Transcendentalism  was  attacked  (though  more 
often  sneered  at)  as  a  threat,  however  impotent, 
r  of  radical  revolution ;  but  not  often,  I  think,  in 
the  person  of  Emerson.  In  him,  it  would  be  felt, 
revolution  was  like  the  revolutions  of  Nature,  who 
does  not  cast  off  her  old  leaves  until  she  has  got 
ready  the  new.  Dr.  Holmes,  in  the  exquisite 
eulogy  before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
at  the  meeting  after  Emerson's  death,  says  of  him 
that  he  was  "  an  iconoclast  without  a  hammer,  who 
took  down  our  idols  from  their  pedestals  so  ten- 
derly that  it  seemed  like  an  act  of  worship."  That 
is  well  said ;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  he  took  them 
down,  or  even  thought  it  important  that  they 
should  come  down,  so  long  as  they  were  really  ob- 
jects of  worship.  What  he  wished  to  disturb  was 
formalism  ;  the  stagnation  of  the  spiritual  life  about 
the  emblems  of  a  faith  that  has  departed ;  the  gaz- 
ing after  past  revelations  until  we  are  blind  to  the 
present. 

But  some  there  were,  high-flying  souls  filled 
with  the  new  wine  of  this  idealism,  to  whom  the 
reality  of  ideas  appeared  to  require  that  immediate 
effect  should  be  given  to  their  ideas  ;  and,  failing 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  263 

this,  that  they  should  refuse  all  participation  in  an 
order  of  things  which  they  could  not  approve.  This 
antinomian  spirit  in  various  degrees  very  much 
abounded  at  that  time,  and  it  was  to  this  that  the 
name  of  Transcendentalism  was  commonly  given. 
In  minds  of  a  practical  turn  it  took  the  shape  of 
associations  for  radical  reform,  even  to  the  extent 
of  separation  from  the  stockish  civilization  of  the 
community  into  select  societies  of  their  own. 
Others,  of  less  turn  for  practice  or  more  exorbi- 
tant ideas,  seeing  that  all  association  involves  some 
descent  and  accommodation  to  the  average  view, 
were  disposed  to  renounce  society  and  its  works  al- 
together, and  to  betake  themselves  to  the  com- 
panionship of  the  rocks  and  trees,  of  animals,  or 
of  children  and  uneducated  persons ;  in  whom  there 
is  no  consciousness  of  any  aim  beyond  the  present, 
and  therefore  no  danger  of  their  disgusting  us  by 
paltry  aims. 

The  name  that  most  readily  suggests  itself  here 
is  that  of  Thoreau  ;  but  he  stands  somewhat  apart, 
upon  a  ground  of  his  own,  as  a  writer  of  unequalled 
gift  for  conveying  unbroken  the  peculiar  charm  of 
the  homely  New  England  landscape.  He  had  the 
right  to  saunter  at  will  in  the  fields  and  woods  of 
Concord,  though  he  need  not  have  spent  so  much 
time  there,  still  less  have  exalted  sauntering  into  a 
religion.  In  general  the  recusants  were  persons  of 
delicate  susceptibility,  who  banished  themselves  to 


264  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

the  rocks  and  echoes,  not  so  much  from  any  keen 
satisfaction  they  found  there  as  by  way  of  rebuke 
to  the  shortcomings  of  civilization.  "  They  praise 
the  farmer's  life,"  writes  Emerson  in  his  journal, 
"  but  it  is  only  to  express  their  sense  of  some  wrong 
in  the  merchant's;  praise  the  farmer's  a  little  more 
and  you  shall  find  they  do  not  like  it." 

A  good  instance,  of  which  I  find  some  trace 
among  ^inerson's  papers,  was  that  of  two  city  lads, 
—  merchants'  clerks  or  apprentices,  —  who,  a  year 
or  two  before  Thoreau's  Walden  hermitage,  forsook 
their  counting-rooms  and  spent  the  most  of  a  win- 
ter in  the  forest,  far  from  human  habitation,  cooped 
up  in  their  hut,  reading  and  writing  (in  mittens) 
as  well  as  they  could  for  the  cold,  and  at  length 
escaped,  with  severe  frost-bites,  to  the  settlements, 
whence  they  could  seek  the  assistance  of  their 
friends. 

This  was  the  exaggeration  of  a  disposition  widely 
spread  among  the  educated  youth  of  this  neigh- 
borhood at  that  time,  —  a  spirit  of  revolt  against 
commonplace  surroundings ;  against  employments, 
companionships  and  standards  they  could  not  ac- 
cept without  some  compromise  with  their  genius, 
some  condescension  from  the  lofty  tasks  and  the 
high  friendships  of  which  they  felt  themselves  ca- 
pable.  It  was  a  frame  of  mind  that  is  common 
enough,  no  doubt,  at  all  times  and  places  during  the 
critical  period  of  "  getting  under  weigh,"  but  it  was 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  265 

especially  favored  by  the  circumstances.  The  New 
England  or  the  America  of  that  day  was  yet  more 
emphatically  than  the  present  the  land  of  promise. 
Everything  was  beginning,  the  bonds  of  tradition 
were  loosed,  new  prospects  were  opening  on  every 
side.  An  intoxication  was  in  the  air,  from  which 
the  most  conservative  were  not  exempt.  There 
was  an  immense,  indefinite  hope,  and  there  was  the 
assurance  that  all  particular  mischiefs  were  speedily 
coming  to  an  end. 

The  exhilaration  was  not  confined  to  this  country ; 
in  England,  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Wordsworth 
were  the  prophets  of  a  world  of  better  stuff,  and 
Byron  gave  the  counterpart  in  his  bitter  mockery 
of  the  present.  Even  in  conservative  Oxford  there 
was  a  "  movement,"  though  to  be  sure  it  was  in  a 
retrograde  direction.  "  Everybody  was  to  rise.  All 
were  to  retrace  their  steps  to  an  age  of  which  they 
knew  nothing,  except  that  it  was  in  every  respect 
the  very  contrary  of  that  we  live  in."  1  It  was  the 
farthest  wave  of  Romanticism,  starting  half  a  cen- 
tury back  in  Germany  and  France,  and  reaching 
our  shores  in  1835.  But  here  the  resistance  of  the 
environment  was  far  less,  "  the  cure  by  hunger," 
of  which  Carlyle  speaks  in  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  less 
operative  ;  the  past  and  the  present  in  all  ways  had 
much  less  force,  the  future  much  greater.  So  the 

1  Rev.  T.  Mozley's  Reminiscences,  chiefly  of  Oriel  College  and  the 
Oxford  Movement.  Boston,  1882 :  ii.  2. 


266  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Transcendental  aura  expanded  widely,  and  also 
harmlessly  ;  for  in  the  directions  in  which  it  might 
have  done  harm  it  was  met  by  the  resistance,  po- 
tent as  ever,  of  the  Puritan  spirit,  and  went  off  in 
talk.  There  was  much  talk  in  those  days  of  spon- 
taneity,—  the  right  and  the 'duty  of  acting  one's 
self  out,  and  following  one's  genius  whithersoever 
it  might  lead ;  but  when  it  came  to  action,  the  Pu- 
ritan blood  held  its  own,  and  refused  to  flow  in  un- 
lawful channels.  The  worst  that  could  be  said  of 
Transcendentalism  was  that  it  led  to  a  good  deal 
.of  vaporing,  of  rhetoric  and  paradox,  spoken  and 
acted,  —  confident  statements,  strong  expressions, 
not  always  of  serious  conviction  so  much  as  of  an 
overweening  superiority  to  every-day  opinions  and 
practices,  too  lofty  to  condescend  to  any  apprecia- 
tion of  them.  People  complained  that  Transcen- 
dentalism unfitted  their  sons  for  business  and  their 
daughters  for  soeiety,  without  making  them  fit  for 
anything  else. 

It  was  easy  to  turn  the  "  Transcendental  move- 
ment "  into  ridicule,  —  there  were,  indeed,  among  the 
Transceudentalists  some  who  saved  their  ill-wishers 
the  trouble,  —  but,  soberly  considered,  it  was  no  bad 
thing  to  find,  still  alive,  something  of  the  idealism 
that  had  made  New  England.  Had  the  scoffers 
been  better  gifted  with  an  instinct  for  what  is  vital 
to  the  welfare  of  the  community,  they  might  have 
felt,  behind  the  extravagances,  the  presence  of 


TRANSCENDENTALISM.  267 

something  to  give  them  pause ;  a  striving  towards 
the  realization  of  the  glittering  generalities  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  If  it  be  asked, 
What  was  the  good  of  Transcendentalism?  I 
would  suggest  by  way  of  reply  that  it  was  a  senti- 
ment; and  that  as  "such  its  influence  for  good,  if  it 
had  any,  is  to  be  looked  for  in  a  deeper  way  of 
feeling  and  an  enlarged  way  of  thinking  about  all 
subjects,  and  not  in  a  particular  set  of  opinions  or 
practices.  Whether  any  such  results  can  be  traced 
it  is  perhaps  even  now  too  soon  to  inquire.  Any- 
how, it  was  an  interesting  phase  of  the  New  Eng- 
land character,  and  the  more  remarkable  the  closer 
it  is  looked  at. 


CHAPTER 

CONCORD. 

THE  new  household  that  Emerson  was  setting  up 
in  the  quiet  town  of  his  forefathers  was  to  include 
his  mother  and  also  his  brother  Charles,  whose 
marriage  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar  was  to  take  place 
in  September ;  and  Waldo  was  engaged  in  adding 
rooms  to  the  house  for  their  accommodation,  when 
the  pleasant  prospect  was  shut  out  by  Charles's 
death. 

The  "  pallid  brow  "  and  the  "  slight  figure  "  that 
characterize  Charles  Emerson  in  Dr.  Holmes's 
beautiful  lines  were  premonitory  of  the  pulmonary 
weakness  by  which  the  trio  of  brothers  were  af- 
flicted ;  and  now,  as  the  thirtieth  year  approached, 
there  were  symptoms  that  made  it  advisable  for 
him  in  the  spring  to  seek  a  milder  climate.  Waldo, 
who  was  lecturing  in  Salem,  and  had  left  the  charge 
of  the  house  to  Charles,  postponed  his  lectures, 
and  went  southward  with  him  by  easy  stages  to 
New  York,  where  his  mother  was. 

SOUTH  BKOOKFIELD,  April  23,  1836. 

DEAR  LIDIAN  :  ...  I  am  particularly  sorry  to 


CONCORD.  269 

leave  you  alone  at  this  time,  when  so  many  things 
are  to  be  considered  and  done ;  sorry  too  because 
wif ey  is  sorry ;  sorry  because  Charles,  who  knows 
better  what  I  want  than  I  do,  is  gone  at  the  same 
time ;  sorriest  for  the  occasion  of  absence.  But 
all  these  sorrows  I  hope  may  end  pleasantly  soon. 
I  hate  journeying.  It  is  for  me  very  unprofitable 
time.  The  conversation  of  the  stage-coach  I  dis- 
like also.  On  almost  all  occasions  it  is  waste 
breath,  both  what  I  hear  and  what  I  say.  You 
will  think  me  so  nice  and  with  so  few  things  pleased 
that  I  am  not  fit  to  live.  But  I  find  my  compen- 
sation in  the  heartiness  of  my  joy  when  I  do  find 
my  hour  and  my  man. 

April  24.  Yesterday's  winter  wind  has  disap- 
peared, but  we  have  a  raw,  chill  day,  hostile  to 
life.  I  fear  I  shall  not  feel  any  love  for  my  father- 
land until  Charles's  cough  is  relieved.  He  is  not 
seriously  ill,  otherwise  than  that  he  has  a  very  deli- 
cate system,  with  very  little  power  of  resistance.  .  .  . 
Inform  me  accurately  by  mail  at  New  Haven,  and 
then  immediately  at  New  York,  of  your  health, 
circumstances,  doings,  and  thinkings,  my  dear  wife. 
I  hope  neither  of  my  guests,  Col.  Kent  or  Mr. 
Kettell,  will  come  whilst  I  am  gone.  If  they 
should,  open  wide  all  doors ;  tell  them  they  are 
heartily  welcome,  and  that  I  left  word  they  must 
entertain  themselves ;  and  then  do  you  feel  no  re- 
sponsibility at  all.  You  said  you  gave  Mrs.  Samp- 


270  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

son  the  hospitable  glance.  Well,  do  even  so  by 
them  all.  And  so  farewell  and  happily,  my  kind 
wife,  and  time  and  the  Lord  of  time  shall  bring 
roses  and  sunshine  for  even  you  and  me. 

Yours  affectionately,  WALDO  E. 

At  New  York  Charles  seemed  better,  and  Waldo 
left  him  there,  for  the  time,  with  his  mother,  at 
William's  house,  and  went  back  to  his  lectures, 
from  which  he  was  speedily  summoned  by  the  news 
of  a  sudden  aggravation  of  the  malady,  and  hurried 
back,  with  Miss  Hoar,  too  late  to  find  his  brother 
living. 

NEW  YOKK,  Thursday,  May  12,  1836. 

DEAR  LIDIAN,  —  Yesterday  afternoon  we  at- 
tended Charles's  funeral.  Mother  and  Elizabeth 
heard  the  prayers,  but  did  not  go  out.  Mother  is 
very  well,  and  bears  her  sorrow  like  one  made  to 
bear  it  and  to  comfort  others.  Elizabeth  is  well,  and 
the  strength  and  truth  of  her  character  appear  under 
this  bitter  calamity.  William  and  Susan  are  well 
and  thoroughly  kind  to  us,  as  they  have  been  ten- 
derly faithful  to  Charles.  I  have  told  mother  that 
I  think  it  best,  on  every  account,  she  should  return 
immediately  with  me,  and  end  her  painful  visit  to 
New  York,  whither  she  came  to  spend  a  month  of 
happiness  in  the  new  household  of  her  son.  It 
tifs  been  seven  or  eight  months  of  much  sickness, 
anxiety,  and  death.  She  will  return  with  me  and 


CONCORD.  271 

Elizabeth,  and  we  take  the  boat  to-morrow  after- 
noon. Now,  my  dear  wife,  shall  I  find  you  in 
Boston  or  in  Concord?  Do  what  you  think  best. 
You  may  think  it  necessary  to  go  home  on  Friday, 
to  make  ready  and  receive  us,  or  perhaps  you  can 
send  sufficient  word  and  go  with  us  on  Saturday. 
It  is  not  of  much  importance  any  way.  Trifles  all. 
Only  I  wish  mother  to  sit  down  as  gently  and 
wontedly  in  her  chamber  in  your  house  as  if  she 
had  never  been  in  any  other. 

.  .  .  And  so,  Lidian,  I  can  never  bring  you  back 
my  noble  friend,  who  was  my  ornament,  my  wis- 
dom, and  my  pride.  A  soul  is  gone,  so  costly  and 
so  rare  that  few  persons  were  capable  of  knowing 
its  price,  and  I  shall  have  my  sorrow  to  myself ; 
for  if  I  speak  of  him  I  shall  be  thought  a  fond  ex- 
aggerator.  He  had  the  fourfold  perfection  of  good 
sense,  of  genius,  of  grace,  and  of  virtue  as  I  have 
never  seen  them  combined.  I  determined  to  live 
in  Concord,  as  you  know,  because  he  was  there ; 
and  now  that  the  immense  promise  of  his  maturity 
is  destroyed,  I  feel  not  only  unfastened  there  and 
adrift,  but  a  sort  of  shame  at  living  at  all.  I  am 
thankful,  dear  Lidian,  that  you  have  seen  and 
known  him  to  that  degree  you  have.  I  should 
not  have  known  how  to  forgive  you  an  ignorance 
of  him,  had  he  been  out  of  your  sight.  Thanks, 
thanks  for  your  kindest  sympathy  and  appreciation 
of  him.  And  you  must  be  content  henceforth  with 


272  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

only  a  piece  of  your  husband ;  for  the  best  of  his 
strength  lay  in  the  soul  with  which  he  must  no 
more  on  earth  take  counsel.  How  much  I  saw 
through  his  eyes !  I  feel  as  if  my  own  were  very 
dim.  Yours  affectionately,  WALDO  E. 

(Journal.)  "  Concord,  May  16,  1836.  And 
here  I  am  again  at  home,  but  I  have  come  alone. 
My  brother,  my  friend,  my  ornament,  my  joy 
and  pride  has  fallen  by  the  wayside ;  or  rather  has 
risen  out  of  this  dust.  Charles  died  at  New  York 
Monday  afternoon,  May  9th.  His  prayer  that  he 
might  not  be  sick  was  granted  to  him.  He  was 
never  confined  to  a  bed.  He  rode  out  on  Monday 
afternoon  with  mother,  promised  himself  to  begin 
his  journey  with  me  on  my  arrival  the  next  day. 
On  reaching  home  he  stepped  out  of  the  carriage 
alone,  walked  up  the  steps  and  into  the  house  with- 
out assistance,  sat  down  on  the  stairs,  fainted,  and 
never  recovered.  Clean  and  sweet  was  his  life, 
untempted  almost,  and  his  action  on  others  all- 
healing,  uplifting,  and  fragrant.  I  mourn  that  in 
losing  him  I  have  lost  his  all,  for  he  was  born  an 
orator,  not  a  writer.  His  written  pages  do  him  no 
justice,  and,  as  he  felt  the  immense  disparity  be- 
tween his  power  of  conversation  and  his  blotted 
paper,  it  was  easy  for  him  to  speak  with  scorn  of 
written  composition.  Now  commences  a  new  and 
gloomy  epoch  of  my  life ;  I  have  used  his  society 


CONCORD.  273 

so  fondly  and  solidly.  It  opened  itself  genially  to 
his  warm  and  bright  light,  and  borrowed  color  and 
sometimes  form  from  him.  Besides  my  direct  debt 
to  him  of  many  valued  thoughts,  through  what 
orbits  of  speculation  have  we  not  travelled  to- 
gether !  So  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for  either 
of  us  to  say,  This  is  my  thought ;  that  is  yours.  I 
have  felt  in  him  the  inestimable  advantage,  when 
God  allows  it,  of  finding  a  brother  and  a  friend  in 
one.  The  mutual  understanding  is  then  perfect, 
because  nature  has  settled  the  constitution  of  the 
amity  on  solidest  foundations,  and  so  it  admits 
of  mercenary  usefulness  and  of  unsparing  censure. 
Then  the  same  persons  and  facts  are  known  to 
each,  and  an  occult  hereditary  sympathy  underlies 
all  our  intercourse  and  extends  farther  than  we 
know.  Who  can  ever  supply  his  place  to  me? 
None.  I  may  (though  it  is  improbable)  see  many 
as  cultivated  persons ;  but  his  elegance,  his  wit,  his 
sense,  his  worship  of  principles,  I  shall  not  find 
united,  —  I  shall  not  find  them  separate.  The  eye 
is  closed  that  was  to  see  nature  for  me  and  give  me 
leave  to  see ;  the  taste  and  soul  which  Shakspeare 
satisfied ;  the  soul  that  loved  St.  John  and  St. 
Paul,  Isaiah  and  David;  the  acute  discernment 
that  divided  the  good  from  the  evil  in  all  objects 
around  him,  —  in  society,  in  politics,  in  church,  in 
books,  in  persons ;  the  hilarity  of  thought  which 
awakened  good-humor  and  laughter  without  shame ; 


274  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

and  the  endless  endeavor  after  a  life  of  ideal 
beauty,  —  these  are  all  gone  from  my  actual  world, 
and  will  here  no  more  be  seen." 

TO   MISS   MARY  EMERSON. 

I  mourn  for  the  commonwealth  which  has  lost, 
before  yet  it  had  learned  his  name,  the  promise  of 
his  eloquence  and  rare  public  gifts.  He  pleased 
himself  that  he  had  been  bred  from  infancy,  as  it 
were,  in  the  public  eye  ;  and  he  looked  forward  to 
the  debates  of  the  senate  on  great  political  ques- 
tions as  to  his  first  and  native  element.  And  with 
reason ;  for  in  extempore  debate  his  speech  was 
music,  and  the  precision,  the  flow,  and  the  elegance 
of  his  discourse  equally  excellent.  I  shall  never 
hear  such  speaking  as  his ;  for  his  memory  was  a 
garden  of  immortal  flowers,  and  all  his  reading 
came  up  to  him  as  he  talked. 

Emerson  never  found  companions  who  made 
good  his  brothers  to  him,  but  he  began  now  to 
make  acquaintance  with  some  of  the  persons  whose 
names  are  most  frequently  associated  with  his.  He 
writes  to  his  brother  William  :  — 

CONCORD,  August  8,  1836. 

Mr.  Alcott  has  spent  a  day  here  lately,  —  the 
world-builder.  An  accomplished  lady  is  staying  with 
Lidian  now,  Miss  Margaret  Fuller.  She  is  quite 


CONCORD.  275 

an  extraordinary  person  for  her  apprehensiveness, 
her  acquisitions,  and  her  power  of  conversation.  It 
is  always  a  great  refreshment  to  see  a  very  intelli- 
gent person.  It  is  like  being  set  in  a  large  place. 
You  stretch  your  limbs  and  dilate  to  your  utmost 


He  had  met  Miss  Fuller  the  year  before,  and 
she  was  now  making  them  a  long  visit,  often  after- 
wards repeated  and  always  welcomed,  yet,  I  think, 
with  a  slight  shudder  on  Emerson's  part ;  for  al- 
though he  enjoyed  the  spectacle  of  so  much  talent 
and  good-will,  and  would  have  been  well  pleased  to 
add  her  to  his  library  or  his  gallery  of  "  influ- 
ences," yet  her  eager  efforts  to  disturb  his  pro- 
voking equilibrium,  and  "  to  teach  this  sage  [as  she 
writes  to  some  one]  all  he  wants  to  make  him  the 
full-fledged  angel,  to  make  him  forego  these  tedious, 
tedious  attempts  to  learn  the  universe  by  thought 
alone,"  were  apt  to  bring  into  play  those  "  repul- 
sions "  of  which  he  speaks  in  his  poem  of  the 
"  Visit."  With  her  ardent,  somewhat  masterful 
temperament  she  was  accustomed  promptly  to  es- 
tablish, almost  to  dictate,  what  relations  with  people 
she  chose  ;  but  here,  with  the  best  will  on  both 
sides,  she  found  herself  balked.  "  She  ever  seems 
to  crave  [says  Emerson  in  his  journal]  some- 
what I  have  not,  or  have  not  for  her."  What  she 
missed  was  not  appreciation,  for  he  always  ad- 


276  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

mired  and  lavishly  praised  her  generous  nature 
and  her  gifts ;  but  close  personal  intimacy,  and 
that  she  could  never  attain.  Nobody  could,  —  no- 
body outside  his  own  family  circle  and  the  friends 
of  his  childhood  ;  but  of  this  she  could  never  be 
convinced,  and  she  flung  herself  against  him,  as 
Mr.  Higginson  says,1  again  and  again,  often  with  a 
painful  recoil,  which,  however,  did  not  throw  her 
into  any  injustice  to  Emerson.  It  was  really  not 
his  fault ;  she  did  not  hold  the  key,  and  he  could 
not  open  himself  to  her.  Many  letters  passed  be- 
tween them,  —  especially  at  the  Dial  time,  —  filled 
on  his  side  with  expressions  of  admiration  and 
thankfulness,  but  never  giving,  what  alone  could 
content  her,  the  careless  confidence  of  one  who  is 
thinking  aloud  before  his  friend.  Sometimes  he 
gives  her  a  bit  of  an  unpublished  essay,  he  solicits 
her  letters  and  her  visits,  he  apologizes  for  his  re- 
serve ;  but  there  was  always  an  interval  which  she 
could  not  cross.  Here  are  some  specimens ;  the 
first  without  date,  but  probably  in  1839,  when  she 
thought  of  taking  up  her  abode  in  Concord  :  — 

DEAR  MARGARET, — None  knows  better  than 
I,  more  's  the  pity,  the  gloomy  inhospitality  of  the 
man ;  the  want  of  power  to  meet  and  unite  with 
even  those  whom  he  loves  "  in  his  flinty  way." 

1  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.  By  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 
[American  Men  of  Letters]  :  p.  300. 


CONCORD.  277 

What  amends  can  he  make  to  his  guests?  he 
asked  himself  long  since.  Only  to  anticipate,  and 
thus  if  possible  mitigate,  their  disgust  and  suspicion 
at  the  discovery,  by  apprising  them  beforehand 
that  this  outside  of  wax  covered  an  inside  of  stone. 
Ice  has  its  uses,  when  deception  is  not  thought  of 
and  we  are  not  looking  for  bread.  Being  made  by 
chemistry  and  not  by  cooks,  its  composition  is  un- 
erring, and  it  has  a  universal  value,  as  ice,  not  as 
glass  or  gelatine.  Would  you  know  more  of  his 
history  ?  Diffident,  shy,  proud,  having  settled  it 
long  ago  in  his  mind  that  he  and  society  must  al- 
ways be  nothing  to  each  other,  he  received  with 
astonishment  the  kind  regards  of  such  as,  coming 
from  the  opposite  quarter  of  the  heavens,  he  now 
calls  his  friends ;  with  surprise,  and,  when  he  dared 
to  believe  them,  with  delight.  Can  one  be  glad  of 
an  affection  which  he  knows  not  how  to  return  ?  I 
am.  Humbly  grateful  for  every  expression  of  ten- 
derness which  makes  the  day  sweet  and  inspires 
unlimited  hopes,  I  did  not  deceive  myself  with 
thinking  that  the  old  bars  would  suddenly  fall. 
No,  I  knew  that  if  I  would  cherish  my  dear  ro- 
mance I  must  treat  it  gently,  forbear  it  long,  wor- 
ship, not  use  it,  and  so  at  last  by  piety  I  might  be 
tempered  and  annealed  to  bear  contact  and  con- 
versation as  well-mixed  natures  should.  Therefore, 
my  friend,  treat  me  always  as  a  mute,  not  ungrate- 
ful though  now  incommunicable. 


278  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

You  are  very  gentle  and  tender  in  your  ques- 
tions. If  you  should  rate  me  soundly  it  would  be 
juster.  You  have  a  right  to  expect  great  activity, 
great  demonstration,  and  large  intellectual  contri- 
butions from  your  frieuds,  and,  though  you  do  not 
say  it,  you  receive  nothing.  As  well  be  related  to 
mutes  as  to  uncommunicating  egoists.  Yet  I  plead 
not  guilty  to  the  malice  prepense.  'T  is  imbecility, 
not  contumacy;  though  perhaps  somewhat  more 
odious.  It  seems  very  just,  the  irony  with  which 
you  ask  whether  you  may  not  be  trusted,  and 
promise  such  docility.  Alas  !  we  will  all  promise, 
but  the  prophet  loiters.  Strange  disproportion  be- 
twixt our  apprehension  and  our  power  to  embody 
and  affirm ! 

They  saw  much  of  each  other  in  these  years, 
and  corresponded  abundantly  in  the  Dial  time,  but 
always  at  some  distance.  He  speaks  in  his  jour- 
nal in  1841  of  these  "strange,  cold-warm,  attrac- 
tive-repelling conversations  with  Margaret,  whom 
I  always  admire,  most  revere  when  I  nearest  see, 
and  sometimes  love ;  yet  whom  I  freeze  and  who 
freezes  me  to  silence  when  we  promise  to  come 
nearest." 

After  her  departure  for  Europe  he  wrote  to  her 
from  time  to  time,  and  was  always  grateful  for  her 
appreciation  and  sympathy.  On  the  news  of  her 
death,  he  writes :  "  I  have  lost  in  her  my  audience, 


CONCORD.  279 

and  I  hurry  now  to  my  work,  admonished  that  I 
have  few  days  left." 

Mr.  Alcott  visited  Concord  in  1835,  and  in  1840 
came  to  live  there.  Almost  from  the  first  he  made 
a  prodigious  impression  upon  Emerson. 

TO   MISS   MARGARET   FULLER. 

CONCORD,  May  19,  1837. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  :  .  .  .  Mr.  Alcott  is  the  great 
man,  and  Miss  Fuller  has  not  seen  him.  His  book 
does  him  no  justice,  and  I  do  not  like  to  see  it.  I 
had  not  fronted  him  for  a  good  while,  and  was  will- 
ing to  revise  my  opinion.  But  he  has  more  of  the 
godlike  than  any  man  I  have  ever  seen,  and  his  pres- 
ence rebukes,  and  threatens,  and  raises.  He  is  a 
teacher.  I  shall  dismiss  for  the  future  all  anxiety 
about  his  success.  If  he  cannot  make  intelligent 
men  feel  the  presence  of  a  superior  nature,  the 
worse  for  them ;  I  can  never  doubt  him.  His 
ideal  is  beheld  with  such  unrivalled  distinctness 
that  he  is  not  only  justified  but  necessitated  to  con- 
demn and  to  seek  to  upheave  the  vast  actual,  and 
cleanse  the  world. 

And  in  his  journal  of  the  same  day :  "  Yester- 
day Alcott  left  us,  after  a  three  days'  visit.  The 
most  extraordinary  man,  and  the  highest  genius  of 
his  time.  He  ought  to  go  publishing  through  the 


280  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

land  his  gospel,  like  them  of  old  time.  Wonder- 
ful is  the  steadiness  of  his  vision.  The  scope  and 
steadiness  of  his  eye  at  once  rebuke  all  before  it, 
and  we  little  men  creep  about  ashamed." 

And  fifteen  years  afterwards  :  "  It  were  too 
much  to  say  that  the  Platonic  world  I  might  have 
learned  to  treat  as  cloud-land  had  I  not  known  Al- 
cott,  who  is  a  native  of  that  country ;  yet  I  will  say 
that  he  makes  it  as  solid  as  Massachusetts  to  me." 

He  soon  discovered  that  Mr.  Alcott  could  not 
write  ;  and  he  was  afterwards  obliged  to  confess 
that  his  friend  could  not  deal  with  matters  of  fact. 
"  When  Alcott  [Emerson  writes  in  his  journal  in 
1846]  wrote  from  England  that  he  was  bringing 
home  Wright  and  Lane  [afterwards  his  associates 
in  the  Fruitlands  community  at  Harvard],  I  wrote 
him  a  letter  which  I  required  him  to  show  them, 
saying  that  they  might  safely  trust  his  theories, 
but  that  they  should  put  no  trust  in  his  statement 
of  facts.  When  they  all  arrived  here,  he  and  his 
victims,  I  asked  them  if  he  showed  them  that  let- 
ter ;  they  answered  that  he  did,  —  so  I  was  clear. 
He  looks  at  everything  in  larger  angles  than  any 
other,  and,  by  good  right,  should  be  the  greatest 
man.  But  here  comes  in  another  trait :  it  is  found, 
though  his  angles  are  of  so  generous  contents,  the 
lines  do  not  meet ;  the  apex  is  not  quite  defined. 
We  must  allow  for  the  refraction  of  the  lens,  but 
it  is  the  best  instrument  I  have  ever  met  with." 


CONCORD.  281 

He  used  to  say  that  it  would  be  a  pity  if  Alcott 
should  survive  him,  since  he  alone  possessed  the 
means  of  showing  to  the  world  what  Alcott  really 
was.  I  do  not  find  that  he  ever  made  the  promised 
elucidation,  but  the  line  it  would  have  taken  is 
intimated  in  the  following  scrap  marked  "Influ- 
ences :  "  — 

"  We  have  seen  an  intellectual  torso,  without 
hands  or  feet,  without  any  organ  whereby  to  repro- 
duce his  thought  in  any  form  of  art  whatever,  —  no 
musical  talent,  no  gift  of  eloquence,  no  plastic  skill 
to  paint  or  carve  or  build  or  write,  .  .  .  and  only 
working  by  presence  and  supreme  intelligence,  as 
a  test  and  standard  of  other  minds.  Such  I  call 
not  so  much  men  as  Influences.  Miners  say 
there  is  sometimes  found  in  California  a  gold-ore 
in  which  the  gold  is  in  combination  with  such  other 
elements  that  no  chemistry  is  able  to  separate  it 
without  great  loss ;  and  there  are  men  of  unques- 
tionable perception  from  whom  no  doctrine,  or  work, 
or  printed  page,  or  act  of  excellence  can  be  de- 
tached or  quoted.  Perhaps  the  office  of  these  is 
highest  of  all  in  the  great  society  of  souls.  How 
often  we  lament  the  compensations  of  power  when 
we  see  talent  suck  the  substance  of  the  man !  How 
often  we  repeat  the  disappointment  of  inferring 
general  ability  from  conspicuous  particular  ability ! 
But  the  accumulation  on  one  point  has  drained  the 
trunk,  and  we  say,  Blessed  are  they  who  have  no 
talent." 


282  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Tlioreau  was  a  boy  at  college  when  Emerson 
moved  to  Concord.  He  graduated  in  1837,  and 
they  first  met,  I  suppose,  at  that  time,  though 
Emerson  had  intervened  in  behalf  of  his  young 
neighbor  somewhat  earlier,  in  a  letter  to  President 
Quincy,  urging  for  the  promising  youth  a  larger 
share  of  the  beneficiary  funds  of  the  college. 
Thenceforth,  until  Thoreau's  death  in  1862,  they 
were  intimate,  —  so  far  as  intimacy  was  possible 
with  so  wayward  a  nature  as  Thoreau's ;  with  whom, 
Emerson  said,  no  equal  companion  could  stand  in 
affectionate  relations.  He  was  one  of  the  two  or 
three  persons  who  occasionally  shared  Emerson's 
woodland  walks,  —  his  week-day  walks,  for  on  Sun- 
day afternoons  he  was  not  averse  to  general  com- 
panionship. In  1841,  Thoreau  became  an  inmate 
of  Emerson's  house,  and  stayed  there  two  years. 
They  worked  in  the  garden  together,  and  Thoreau 
grafted  the  trees  of  the  orchard  in  which  Emerson 
afterwards  took  so  much  pride  and  pleasure.  In 
1847  he  came  and  kept  the  homestead  while  Emer- 
son was  in  Europe. 

Emerson  greatly  admired  the  inflexible  rectitude 
of  the  man,  and  inferred  from  it  high  gifts  ;  he 
rather  enjoyed,  as  the  excess  of  a  good  quality  in- 
sufficient in  his  countrymen  and  himself,  Thoreau's 
nonchalance,  and  the  stubborn,  contradictory  atti- 
tude into  which  almost  any  conversation  threw  him. 
If  there  is  a  little  strut  in  his  style,  he  said,  it  is 
only  from  a  vigor  in  excess  of  the  size  of  his  body. 


CONCORD.  283 

Thoreau  had  a  grave,  measured  way  of  speaking, 
and  a  carriage  of  the  head  that  reminded  one  of  Em- 
erson  and  seemed  like  unconscious  imitation.  And 
in  his  writing  there  is  often  something  that  sug- 
gests this.  Emerson  always  denied  the  imitation, 
and  declared  Thoreau  to  be  the  most  independent 
and  original  of  men.  Yet  the  coincidence  in  man- 
ner perhaps  interfered  with  his  doing  entire  justice 
to  Thoreau's  peculiar  quality.  In  his  biographical 
sketch l  he  extols  Thoreau's  practical  abilities,  his 
accomplishments  as  a  naturalist,  a  surveyor,  a 
woodsman,  praises  his  wit  and  has  a  good  word  for 
his  poems,  but  says  not  a  word  of  that  by  which 
he  will  be  remembered,  —  that  flavor  of  the  wild 
woods,  or  at  least  of  unkempt  nature,  which  he  im- 
parts. 

"  I  told  H.  T.  that  his  freedom  is  in  the  form, 
but  he  does  not  disclose  new  matter.  I  am  fami- 
liar with  all  his  thoughts ;  they  are  mine,  quite 
originally  dressed.  But  if  the  question  be  what  new 
ideas  he  has  thrown  into  circulation,  he  has  not 
yet  told  what  that  is  which  he  was  created  to  say." 
And  he  made  some  difficulty  about  admitting  Tho- 
reau's "  Winter  Walk,"  surely  one  of  his  best 
pieces,  into  the  Dial,  when  he  was  the  editor.2 

1  Collected  Writings,  x.  421. 

2  Yet  in  his  letters  Emerson  is  sometimes  less  chary  of  his 
praise :  — 

"  July,  1846.     In  a  short  time,  if  Wiley  and  Putnam  smile,  you 


284  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Concord  and  the  persons  among  whom  Emerson 
lived  there  have  been  lovingly  enlarged  upon  by 
Mr.  Sanborn  in  his  memoir  of  Thoreau.1  Emer- 
son never  vaunted  the  natural  charms  of  the  place ; 
"  it  might  seem  [he  said]  to  bright  eyes  a  dull 
rabbit-warren,"  but  it  gave  him  what  he  wanted. 
"  It  is  a  compensation  for  the  habitual  modera- 
tion of  nature  in  these  Concord  fields,  and  the 
want  of  picturesque  outlines,  the  ease  of  getting 
about.  I  go  through  Concord  as  through  a  park. 
And  in  Berkshire  or  at  the  seashore,  unless  I  could 
leave  my  knapsack  of  habits  behind  me,  I  should 
not  be  nearer  to  sun  or  star."  Of  the  passion  for 
the  wilderness  he  had  little  or  nothing.  As  much 
wild  nature  as  he  found  in  the  Walden  woodlots, 
or  the  old  roads  and  deserted  farms  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town,  he  liked  to  have  within  reach  of 

shall  have  Henry  Thoreau' s  Excursion  on  the  Concord  and  Merri- 
mack  Rivers,  a  seven  days'  voyage  in  as  many  chapters,  pas- 
toral as  Isaac  Walton,  spicy  as  flag-root,  broad  and  deep  as  Menu. 
He  read  me  some  of  it  under  an  oak  on  the  river-bank  the  other 
afternoon,  and  invigorated  me." 

"  August  23,  1854.  All  American  kind  are  delighted  with 
Walden,  as  far  as  they  have  dared  say.  The  little  pond  sinks  in 
these  very  days  as  tremulous  at  its  human  fame.  I  do  not  know 
if  the  book  has  come  to  you  yet,  but  it  is  cheerful,  sparkling, 
readable,  with  all  kinds  of  merits,  and  rising  sometimes  to  very 
great  heights.  We  account  Henry  the  undoubted  king  of  all 
American  lions." 

1  Henry  D.  Thoreau.  By  F.  B.  Sanborn.  [American  Men  of 
Letters.]  Boston,  1882. 


CONCORD.  285 

his  afternoon  walk ;  but  there  is  always  a  prompt 
return  to  some  human  or  literary  interest.  His 
landscapes  are  always  landscapes  with  figures. 

"  Delicious  summer  stroll  through  the  pastures 
of  Barrett,  Buttrick,  Estabrook  farms.  The  glory 
of  summer ;  what  magnificence !  Yet  none  to  see 
it ;  one  night  of  frost  will  kill  it  all.  On  the  steep 
park  of  Conantum  I  have  the  old  regret,  —  is  all 
this  beauty  to  perish  ?  Shall  none  re-make  this 
sun  and  wind ;  the  sky-blue  river,  the  river-blue 
sky ;  the  yellow  meadow,  spotted  with  sacks  and 
sheets  of  cranberry  gatherers  ;  the  red  bushes  ;  the 
iron-gray  house,  just  the  color  of  the  granite  rocks ; 
the  wild  orchard  ?  We  think  of  the  old  benefac- 
tors who  have  conquered  these  fields ;  the  old  Abel, 
who  has  absorbed  such  volumes  of  sunshine,  like  a 
huge  melon  or  pumpkin  in  the  sun. 

"  To-day  at  the  Cliffs  we  held  our  mllegiatura. 
I  saw  nothing  better  than  the  passage  of  the  river 
by  the  dark  clump  of  trees  that  line  the  bank  in 
one  spot  for  a  short  distance.  As  the  flowing  sil- 
ver reached  that  point  it  darkened,  and  yet  every 
wave  celebrated  its  passage  through  the  shade  by 
one  sparkle.  But  ever  the  direction  of  the  spar- 
kles was  onward,  onward ;  not  one  receded.  At 
one  invariable  pace,  like  marchers  in  a  procession, 
to  solemn  music,  in  perfect  time,  in  perfect  order, 
they  marched  onward,  onward,  and  I  saw  the  warn- 
ing of  their  eternal  flow 


286  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  When  I  bought  my  farm  I  did  not  know  what 
a  bargain  I  had  in  the  bluebirds,  bobolinks,  and 
thrushes,  which  were  not  charged  in  the  bill.  As 
little  did  I  guess  what  sublime  mornings  and  sun- 
sets I  was  buying,  what  reaches  of  landscape,  and 
what  fields  and  lanes  for  a  tramp.  Neither  did  I 
fully  consider  what  an  indescribable  luxury  is  our 
Indian  River,  which  runs  parallel  with  the  village 
street,  and  to  which  every  house  on  that  long  street 
has  a  back-door  which  leads  down  through  the  gar- 
den to  the  river-bank ;  where  a  skiff  or  a  dory  gives 
you,  all  summer,  access  to  enchantments  new  every 
day,  and,  all  winter,  to  miles  of  ice  for  the  skater. 
Still  less  did  I  know  what  good  and  true  neighbors 
I  was  buying ;  men  of  thought  and  virtue,  some  of 
them  now  known  the  country  through  for  their 
learning,  or  subtlety,  or  active  or  patriotic  power, 
but  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  long  be- 
fore the  country  did ;  and  other  men,  not  known 
widely,  but  known  at  home,  farmers,  not  doctors 
of  laws,  but  doctors  of  land,  skilled  in  turning  a 
swamp  or  a  sand-bank  into  a  fruitful  field,  and 
where  witch-grass  and  nettles  grew  causing  a  forest 
of  apple-trees  or  miles  of  corn  and  rye  to  thrive. 
I  did  not  know  what  groups  of  interesting  school- 
boys and  fair  school-girls  were  to  greet  me  in  the 
highway,  and  to  take  hold  of  one's  heart  at  the 
school  exhibitions." 

Emerson  was  a  good  citizen  and  a  good  neigh« 


CONCORD.  287 

bor  with  his  neighbors ;  always  went  to  town- 
meeting,  and  listened  intently  to  the  strong  spirits 
who  ruled  the  discussions,  without  taking  any  part 
himself.  He  served  on  the  school-committee,  at- 
tending the  examinations  with  much  interest,  par- 
ticularly the  exhibitions  of  elocution.  He  was  a 
member  and  constant  attendant  of  the  Social  Cir- 
cle, a  club  of  notables  in  the  town,  —  "  much  the 
best  society  I  have  ever  known,  —  consisting  always 
of  twenty-five  of  our  citizens  ;  doctor,  lawyer,  far- 
mer, trader,  miller,  mechanic ;  solidest  men,  who 
yield  the  solidest  gossip.  Harvard  University  is  a 
wafer  in  comparison  with  the  solid  land  which  my 
friends  represent.  I  do  not  like  to  be  absent  from 
home  on  Tuesday  evenings  in  winter." 

In  the  autumn  (1836)  his  first  child  was  born,  a 
beautiful  boy,  of  wonderful  promise,  cut  short  by 
his  death  five  years  afterwards. 

Emerson  was  now  settled  in  the  habits  of  life 
to  which  he  ever  afterwards  adhered.  The  morn- 
ing was  his  time  of  work,  and  he  took  care  to 
guard  it  from  all  disturbance.  He  rose  early  and 
went  to  his  study,  where  he  remained  until  dinner- 
time, one  o'clock,  and  in  the  afternoon  went  to 
walk.  In  the  evening  he  was  with  his  family, 
sometimes  reading  aloud,  or  went  to  his  study 
again,  but  never  worked  late,  thinking  sleep  to  be 
a  prime  necessity  for  health  of  body  and  of  mind. 
He  was  a  sound  sleeper,  and  never  got  up  at  night, 


288  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

as  some  one  has  fancied,  to   jot   down   thoughts 
which  then  occurred  to  him. 


The  wide  range  of  Emerson's  quotations,  and 
the  unhesitating  way  in  which  he  sometimes  speaks 
upon  subjects  of  learned  investigation,  have  given 
impressions  not  altogether  correct  concerning  the 
character  of  his  reading.  He  had  a  quick  eye  for 
a  good  sentence,  and  never  forgot  one ;  but  the 
quotations,  I  think,  are  sometimes  all  that  he  cared 
to  know  of  the  book;  and  he  would  have  been 
partly  amused,  partly  vexed,  to  hear  himself  de- 
scribed as  a  profound  student,  —  of  the  New  Pla- 
tonists,  or  of  anything  to  be  learned  from  books. 
He  was  a  profound  student,  —  of  impressions,  sen- 
timents, experiences ;  and  was  ready  to  receive 
them  from  any  source.  But  of  the  disengaged 
curiosity,  the  readiness  to  enter  into  and  pursue 
the  ideas  of  others,  that  makes  the  student,  the 
man  of  letters  (or,  again,  the  traveller,  the  man  of 
the  world),  he  had  very  little.  He  did  not  even 
pursue  his  own.  He  was  ever  on  the  watch  for 
them,  trying  to  render  them  without  loss  into 
words,  but  of  their  farther  relations  to  each  other 
or  to  the  ideas  of  other  people  he  was  rather  incu- 
rious. In  his  spiritual  astronomy  or  search  for 
stars  he  was  the  observer  of  single  stars  as  they 
came  into  the  field  of  his  telescope;  he  was  not 
making  a  map  of  the  heavens,  or  even  of  a  par- 


CONCORD.  289 

ticular  region ;  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  re- 
sults of  other  observers.  Let  each  look  for  him- 
self and  report  what  he  sees ;  then,  if  each  has 
been  faithful,  they  will  all  agree ;  meantime,  if  any 
correction  be  needed,  it  will  be  given  by  the  fresh 
experience  which  life  fails  not  to  supply  if  we  are 
heedful  of  its  teachings.  Books  were  for  the  schol- 
ar's idle  times :  at  such  times  Emerson  welcomed 
them  for  the  stimulus  they  gave  him ;  "  to  make 
my  top  spin,"  as  he  said;  without  much  choice, 
but  with  an  inclination  towards  memoirs  and  books 
abounding  in  anecdotes,  —  Plutarch,  Montaigne, 
Spence,  Grimm,  Saint- Simon,  Roederer ;  books 
about  the  first  Napoleon ;  latterly  I  remember  his 
following  Varnhagen  von  Ense's  voluminous  mem- 
oirs, as  the  volumes  came  out.  He  read  the 
"  Vestiges  of  Creation "  with  much  interest,  and 
treasured  in  his  memory  from  all  kinds  of  sources 
many  anecdotes  and  sayings  of  men  of  science. 
In  his  youth  he  seems  to  have  read  Berkeley  and 
Hume  with  attention,  also  Coleridge  and  Lord 
Bacon ;  and  he  was  a  reader  of  English  poetry 
from  his  early  years.  After  his  time  of  produc- 
tion began,  books  occupied  him  less ;  though  at 
Carlyle's  urging,  soon  after  his  return  from  Eu- 
rope, he  made  for  once  something  of  a  study  of 
Goethe,  and  read  every  volume,  even  the  "  Theory 
of  Colors." 

He  was  not  what  one  would  call  a  critical  reader. 


290  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

His  likings  and  dislikings  were  very  distinct  and 
persistent,  but  he  never  troubled  himself  to  account 
for  them.  He  could  see  nothing  in  Shelley,  Aris- 
tophanes, Don  Quixote,  Miss  Austen,  Dickens  ;  he 
did  not  often  read  a  novel,  even  the  famous  ones. 
Dante  was  "  a  man  to  put  in  a  museum,  but  not  in 
your  house  :  another  Zerah  Colburn  ;  a  prodigy  of 
imaginative  function,  executive  rather  than  contem- 
plative or  wise."  French  literature  he  did  not 
love,  though  he  was  a  reader  of  Sainte-Beuve  and 
of  George  Sand.  On  a  journey  he  liked  to  have 
Martial  or  a  treatise  of  Cicero  in  his  hand-bag, 
partly  because  he  did  not  read  them  at  home.  At 
home  he  read  no  Latin  or  Greek,  though  he  re- 
tained his  knowledge  of  Greek  sufficiently  to  be 
able,  in  his  later  years,  to  compare  the  old  trans- 
lation of  Plutarch's  Morals  (a  favorite  book  of 
his)  with  the  original.  Mystical  writings  —  Swe- 
denborg,  Behmen,  and  the  like  —  came  always  well 
recommended  to  him,  though  they  did  not  engage 
him  very  deeply.  The  New  Platonists  (in  Thomas 
Taylor's  translation)  and  the  Oriental  (particularly 
the  Hindoo)  religious  books,  the  Bhagavat  Gita, 
the  Puranas,  and  Upanishads,  were  among  his  fa- 
vorites. He  often  quotes  the  so-called  Chaldaean 
Oracles,  and  the  like,  without  troubling  himself 
with  ahy  question  of  their  authenticity ;  not  car- 
ing, he  said,  "  whether  they  are  genuine  antiques 
or  modern  counterfeits,  as  I  am  only  concerned 


CONCORD.  291 

with  the  good  sentences,  and  it  is  indifferent  how 
old  a  truth  is." 

In  general,  after  he  began  to  write  and  publish, 
his  reading  was  "for  the  lustres," — for  a  touch 
of  suggestion  that  might  help  to  crystallize  the 
thoughts  that  were  floating  within  him.  He  would 
take  up  a  volume  of  Plato  or  the  New  Platonists, 
or  Von  Hammer's  translation  of  Hafiz,  and  enjoy 
what  he  found  in  them  without  asking  after  its 
credentials.  Here  and  there  we  find  a  trace  of  in- 
fluence from  some  book,  particularly  those  he  read 
in  early  youth,  Berkeley,  Hume,  Coleridge,  Samp- 
son Reed's  "  Growth  of  the  Mind ; "  but,  in  gen- 
eral, to  look  for  the  source  of  any  way  of  thinking 
of  his  in  the  Neoplatonists,  or  in  any  of  the  books 
he  read,  seems  to  me  like  tracing  the  origin  of  Ja- 
cob Behmen's  illumination  to  the  glitter  of  the 
pewter  tankard,  which,  he  says,  awakened  in  him 
the  consciousness  of  divine  things.  Even  where 
the  coincidence  (as  with  Fichte,  Schleiermacher, 
Hegel)  seemed  too  close  to  be  accidental,  I  found 
reason  to  think  that  he  had  no  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  the  books. 

He  says  in  his  journal  in  1837 :  "  If  you  elect 
writing  for  your  task  in  life,  I  believe  you  must 
renounce  all  pretensions  to  reading."  Not  as  if 
learning  were  hostile  to  originality,  —  the  power  to 
originate,  he  says,  is  commonly  accompanied  by 
assimilating  power ;  he  had  great  regard  for  schol- 


292  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

arship,  and  lamented  the  want  of  it  in  this  country ; 
he  was  impatient  of  the  "  self-made  men "  whose 
originality  rests  on  their  ignorance.  But  he  was 
thinking  merely  of  his  own  case  :  learning,  he  felt, 
was  not  his  affair ;  he  was  occupied  with  his  own 
problems.  "I  have  long  ago  discovered  that  I 
have  nothing  to  do  with  other  people's  facts.  It 
is  enough  for  me  if  I  can  dispose  of  my  own." 

It  was  a  maxim  with  him  that  power  is  not  so 
much  shown  in  talent  or  in  successful  performance 
as  in  tone;  the  absolute  or  the  victorious  tone,  the 
tone  of  direct  vision,  disdaining  all  definitions. 
This  had  a  special  attraction  for  him,  in  a  book  or 
in  a  person,  and  may  help  to  explain  some  predi- 
lections of  his.  He  disliked  limitations,  and  wel- 
comed whatever  promised  to  get  rid  of  them,  with- 
out always  inquiring  very  closely  what  was  left 
when  they  were  removed. 

On  the  whole,  what  is  most  noteworthy  in  Em- 
erson's relation  to  books  is  the  slightness  of  his  de- 
pendence on  them.  He  lived  among  his  books  and 
was  never  comfortable  away  from  them,  yet  they 
did  not  much  enter  into  his  life.  They  were  pleas- 
ant companions,  but  not  counsellors,  —  hardly  even 
intimates.  His  writings  abound  in  quotations,  and 
he  valued  highly  the  store  of  sentences  laid  up  in 
his  note-books  for  use  in  lecturing.  But  he  quotes, 
as  he  himself  says,  in  a  way  unflattering  to  his 
author ;  there  is  little  trace  of  that  most  flattering 


CONCORD.  293 

kind  of  quotation  which  shows  itself  in  assimila- 
tion of  the  thought. 

Study,  with  him,  was  mainly  the  study  of  ex- 
pression; not  the  rounding  of  periods,  but  the 
effort  to  reproduce  the  impression  precisely  as  it 
was  received.  If  he  was  sometimes  led  astray  by 
what  he  calls  "the  point  and  surprise  of  a  sen- 
tence," —  his  own  or  another's,  —  how  little  he 
was  willing  to  sacrifice  to  literary  form  is  shown 
by  the  stumbling-blocks  he  constantly  allowed  to 
remain  in  his  verse.  His  chief,  one  may  almost 
say  his  sole,  aim  was  to  write  in  close  contact  with 
life  and  reality. 

(Journal.)  "The  secret  of  eloquence  is  to  re- 
alize afl.  you  say.  Do  not  give  us  counters  of  base 
coin,  but  every  word  a  real  value.  Only  whilst  it 
has  new  values  does  it  warm  and  invite  and  enable 
to  write.  The  essential  mark  of  poetry  is  that  it 
betrays  in  every  word  instant  activity  of  mind.  A 
man  is  sometimes  enervated  as  much  by  words  as 
by  any  other  luxury.  A  thing  represents  nature 
and  aboriginal  force ;  but  men  transformed  by 
books  become  impotent  praters." 

"Expression  is  what  we  want;  not  knowledge, 
but  vent.  But  an  utterance,  whole,  generous,  sus- 
tained, equal,  graduated  at  will,  such  as  Mon- 
taigne, such  as  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  so  habitu- 
ally and  easily  attain,  I  miss  in  myself  most  of  all, 
but  also  in  my  contemporaries.  I  don't  know  but 


294  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

I  value  the  name  of  a  thing,  that  is,  the  true  poet's 
name  for  it,  more  than  the  thing.  If  I  can  get 
the  right  word  for  the  moon,  or  for  its  manners 
and  influences,  the  word  that  suggests  to  me  and 
to  all  men  its  humane  and  universal  beauty  and 
significance,  then  I  have  what  I  want  of  it :  for  I 
have  no  desire  that  a  road  be  made  from  my  gar- 
den to  the  moon,  or  that  a  deed  of  its  acres  and 
square  miles  be  made  over  to  me." 

In  his  writing,  the  sentence  is  the  natural  limit 
of  continuous  effort;  the  context  and  connection 
was  an  afterthought. 

"  In  writing  my  thoughts  I  seek  no  order,  or  har- 
mony, or  result.  I  am  not  careful  to  see  how  they 
comport  with  other  thoughts  and  other  moods :  I 
trust  them  for  that.  Any  more  than  how  any  one 
minute  of  the  year  is  related  to  any  other  remote 
minute,  which  yet  I  know  is  so  related.  The 
thoughts  and  the  minutes  obey  their  own  magnet- 
isms, and  will  certainly  reveal  them  in  time." 

His  practice  was,  when  a  sentence  had  taken 
shape,  to  write  it  out  in  his  journal,  and  leave 
it  to  find  its  fellows  afterwards.  These  journals, 
paged  and  indexed,  were  the  quarry  from  which 
he  built  his  lectures  and  essays.  When  he  had 
a  paper  to  get  ready,  he  took  the  material  col- 
lected under  the  particular  heading  and  added 
whatever  suggested  itself  at  the  moment.  The 
proportion  thus  added  seems  to  have  varied  consid- 


CONCORD.  295 

erably ;  it  was  large  in  the  early  time,  say  to  about 
1846,  and  sometimes  very  small  in  the  later  es- 
says. 

He  was  well  aware  of  the  unconsecutiveness  that 
came  from  his  way  of  writing,  and  liked  it  as 
little  as  anybody :  — 

(Journal,  1854.)  "If  Minerva  offered  me  a 
gift  and  an  option,  I  would  say,  Give  me  conti- 
nuity. I  am  tired  of  scraps.  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
a  literary  or  intellectual  chiffonier.  Away  with 
this  Jew's  rag-bag  of  ends  and  tufts  of  brocade, 
velvet,  and  cloth-of-gold,  and  let  me  spin  some 
yards  or  miles  of  helpful  twine ;  a  clew  to  lead  to 
one  kingly  truth ;  a  cord  to  bind  wholesome  and 
belonging  facts." 

But  it  was  contrary  to  his  literary  creed  to  aim 
at  completeness  of  statement :  — 

"  I  would  not  degrade  myself  by  casting  about 
for  a  thought,  nor  by  waiting  for  one.  If  the 
thought  come,  I  would  give  it  entertainment ;  but 
if  it  come  not  spontaneously,  it  comes  not  rightly 
at  all." 

When  his  morning's  work  was  done  he  was  free 
to  seek  fresh  inspiration  in  a  book,  any  book ;  or  in 
a  walk,  a  ramble  in  the  orchard,  where  he  loved  at 
the  right  season  to  prune  his  trees  ;  or  through  it, 
across  the  brook  and  the  fields,  to  the  grassy  lane 
leading  to  the  Walden  woods.  Sometimes  he  went 
to  the  orchard  before  his  work,  and  at  one  period 


296  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

he  worked  regularly  in  the  garden  with  hoe  and 
spade. 

Here  are  two  sketches  of  Emerson  as  he  was 
seen  at  this  time,  by  keen  observers  from  widely 
different  points  of  view.  Miss  Martineau  came  to 
Concord  in  1835  ;  she  says  of  him  :  — 

"  He  has  modestly  and  silently  withdrawn  him- 
self from  the  perturbations  and  conflicts  of  the 
crowd  of  men,  without  declining  any  of  the  busi- 
ness of  life  or  repressing  any  of  his  human  sympa- 
thies. He  is  a  thinker  without  being  solitary,  ab- 
stracted, and  unfitted  for  the  time.  He  is  ready  at 
every  call  of  action.  He  lectures  to  the  factory 
people  at  Lowell  when  they  ask.  He  preaches 
when  the  opportunity  is  presented.  He  is  known 
at  every  house  along  the  road  he  travels  to  and 
from  home,  by  the  words  he  has  dropped  and  the 
deeds  he  has  done.  The  little  boy  who  carries 
wood  for  his  household  has  been  enlightened  by 
him ;  and  his  most  transient  guests  owe  to  him 
their  experience  of  what  the  highest  grace  of  do- 
mestic manners  may  be.  ...  Earnest  as  is  the 
tone  of  his  mind,  and  placidly  strenuous  as  is  his 
life,  an  exquisite  spirit  of  humor  pervades  his  in- 
tercourse. A  quiet  gaiety  breathes  out  of  his 
conversation  ;  and  his  observation,  as  keen  as  it  is 
just,  furnishes  him  with  perpetual  material.  .  .  . 
If,  out  of  such  a  harmony,  one  leading  quality  is 
to  be  distinguished,  it  is,  in  him,  modest  indepen- 


CONCORD.  297 

dence,  ...  an  independence  equally  of  thought, 
of  speech,  of  demeanor,  of  occupation,  and  of  ob- 
jects in  life;  yet  without  a  trace  of  contempt  in 
its  temper  or  of  encroachment  in  its  action."  l 
Hawthorne,  somewhat  later,  says  :  — 
"  It  was  good  to  meet  him  in  the  wood-paths  or 
sometimes  in  our  avenue,  with  that  pure  intellec- 
tual gleam  diffusing  about  his  presence  like  the  gar- 
ment of  a  shining  one ;  and  he,  so  quiet,  so  simple, 
so  without  pretension,  encountering  each  man  alive 
as  if  expecting  to  receive  more  than  he  would  im- 
part. ...  It  was  impossible  to  dwell  in  his  vicinity 
without  inhaling  more  or  less  the  mountain  atmos- 
phere of  his  lofty  thought."  2 

1  Retrospect  of  Western  Travel.     London,  1838 :  iii.  229. 

2  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse.    New  York,  1850 :  p.  28. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

RELIGION. 

IN  the  autumn  (1836),  Emerson  advertised  in 
the  Boston  papers  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  at 
the  Masonic  Temple,  — "  On  the  Philosophy  of 
Modern  History.  The  subjects  to  be  treated  are 
the  foundations  of  Religion,  Politics,  Science,  Lit- 
erature, and  Art,  in  the  nature  of  things :  the  ac- 
tion of  general  causes  upon  them  at  the  present 
day;  the  condition  and  tendencies  of  these  ele- 
ments of  civilization  ;  the  popular  sciences  and  the 
men  of  genius,  as  these  illustrate  the  general  sub- 
ject ;  and  the  intellectual  duties  of  the  existing 
generation." 

The  course  began  on  the  8th  of  December,  and 
the  number  of  the  audience  (averaging,  he  says, 
three  hundred  and  fifty)  showed  that  few  as  might 
be  the  readers  of  "  Nature,"  there  were  already  a 
good  many  persons  who  liked  to  hear  him. 

"  How  little  [he  writes  in  his  journal]  we  are 
masters  of  our  wits!  Mine  run  away  with  me.  I 
don't  know  how  to  drive  the  inexorable  thoughts. 
I  see  them  from  afar,  then  they  whisk  by  me :  I 
supplicate,  I  grieve,  I  point  to  the  assembly  that 


RELIGION.  299 

shall  be ;  but  they  will  neither  run  in  pairs,  nor  in 
strings,  nor  in  any  manageable  system.  But  ne- 
cessity is  lord  of  all,  and  when  the  day  comes, 
comes  always  the  old  lord  and  will  harness  the 
very  air,  if  need  be,  to  the  cart.  My  lectures  are 
anything  but  Civil  History,  but  so  much  lecturing, 
and  now  a  little  printing,  have  bronzed  me  ;  I  am 
grown  very  dogmatic ;  and  I  mean  to  insist  that 
whatsoever  elements  of  humanity  have  been  the 
subjects  of  my  studies  constitute  the  indisputable 
core  of  Modern  History.  To  such  lengths  of 
madness  trot  we  when  we  have  not  the  fear  of  crit- 
icism before  our  eyes  ;  and  the  literary  man  in  this 
country  has  no  critic." 

He  wished  to  call  attention,  he  said  in  his  intro- 
duction, not  primarily  to  facts,  but  to  ideas,  which 
create  and  order  facts.  History  is  dull  because  it 
is  not  the  portraiture,  in  act,  of  man,  but  a  chron- 
icle of  the  brute  strivings  and  pushings  of  masses 
of  men  under  the  guidance  of  certain  persons  or 
families.  Thus  it  misses  his  true  and  distinctive 
character.  Other  creatures  are  generic,  and  have 
no  individuals.  One  is  just  like  another,  and  each 
acts  after  his  kind.  But  every  man  is  a  new  and 
incalculable  power,  of  whom  it  can  only  be  pre- 
dicted with  certainty  that  he  possesses  some  faculty 
never  yet  unfolded.  True  history  will  describe 
the  process  through  which  the  individual  swells  to 
the  universal  man ;  his  original  and  eternal  pro- 


300  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

portions  brought  to  light  in  succession,  as  each  part 
of  the  globe  is  brought  by  its  revolution  under  the 
more  direct  rays  of  the  sun. 

Much  from  these  lectures  was  published  three  or 
four  years  afterwards  in  the  first  series  of  Essays. 
The  substance  is  already  here,  and  many  of  the ' 
sentences  reappeared  with  little  change.  The  bear- 
ing on  religion  will  easily  be  guessed  by  readers  of 
the  Essays.  Only  one  lecture  bore  that  title,  but 
it  was  the  real  subject  in  all. 

After  the  course  was  finished  in  Boston,  Emer- 
son was  asked  to  lecture  in  various  places,  among 
others  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  whither  he  went 
in  June,  1837,  by  the  invitation  of  the  Young 
Men's  Association,  to  repeat  the  Boston  course. 
Not  having  time  for  the  whole,  he  proposed  to  omit 
the  lecture  on  "  Religion,"  which  had  excited  some 
murmurs  in  the  Boston  newspapers,  and  might,  he 
thought,  offend  the  feelings  of  so  orthodox  a  com- 
munity. But  it  was  precisely  this  lecture  that  the 
young  men  desired  to  hear,  and  he  at  last  con- 
sented, at  the  suggestion  of  his  friend  the  Reverend 
Frederic  A.  Farley,  minister  of  the  Second  (Uni- 
tarian) Church  in  Providence, — to  whose  kindness 
I  owe  this  anecdote,  —  to  read  it  in  a  private  room. 
Among  the  audience  were  the  President  and  some 
of  the  professors  of  Brown  University,  and  several 
clergymen ;  one  of  them,  says  Dr.  Farley,  "  the 
late  Dr. ,  who  asked  an  introduction  to  Emer- 


RELIGION.  301 

son.  It  was  amusing  to  witness  the  quiet,  cour- 
teous, patient  listening  of  Emerson,  and  the  per- 
sistent but  altogether  vain  efforts  of  Dr. to 

draw  him  into  an  argument  or  discussion.  He 
said  to  me  afterwards,  Your  friend  Emerson  is  a 
very  singular  person ;  I  could  get  nothing  out  of 
him.  Oh,  I  replied,  Mr.  Emerson  never  argues." 

During  the  visit,  Dr.  Farley  one  day  asked  him 
if  he  had  entirely  given  up  preaching.  Emerson 
answered  that  at  times  he  felt  an  inclination  to  try 
the  experiment  once  more,  and  upon  being  invited 
to  do  so  he  preached  on  the  following  Sunday 
from  Dr.  Farley's  pulpit. 

"  He  selected,  from  Greenwood's  collection, 
hymns  of  a  purely  meditative  character,  without 
any  distinctively  Christian  expression.  For  the 
Scripture  lesson  he  read  a  fine  passage  from  Eccle- 
siasticus,  from  which  he  also  took  his  text.  The 
sermon  was  precisely  like  one  of  his  lectures  in 
style ;  the  prayers,  or  what  took  their  place,  were 
wholly  without  supplication,  confession,  or  praise, 
but  very  sweet  meditations  on  nature,  beauty,  order, 
goodness,  love.  The  house  was  crowded.  After 
returning  home  I  found  Emerson  with  his  head 
bowed  on  his  hands,  which  were  resting  on  his 
knees.  He  looked  up  and  said,  '  Now  tell  me, 
honestly,  plainly,  just  what  you  think  of  that  ser- 
vice.' I  replied  that  before  he  was  half  through 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  it  was  the  last  time 


302  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

he  should  have  that  pulpit.  '  You  are  right,'  he  re- 
joined, '  and  I  thank  you.  On  my  part,  before  I 
was  half  through  I  felt  out  of  place.  The  doubt 
is  solved.'  " 

When  I  first  received  this  interesting  account 
from  Dr.  Farley,  knowing  that  Emerson  then 
and  for  some  time  afterwards  was  preaching  regu- 
larly, I  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the  matter  had 
got  itself  misdated  in  his  recollection.  But  he  does 
not  think  so,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  right,  — 
only  that  what  Emerson  said  did  not  mean  quite  v 
what  it  might  seem  to  mean.  He  certainly  did  not 
feel  himself  quite  out  of  place  in  the  pulpit,  for  he 
had  been  preaching  ever  since  his  return  from 
Europe,  and  he  continued  to  preach,  for  a  year  and  ( 
a  half  regularly  and  afterwards  occasionally,  sev- 
eral years  longer.  But  this  was  in  his  own  neigh- 
borhood and  to  accustomed  hearers  who  felt  them-  ; 
selves  quite  safe  with  him,  without  inquiring  or 
leading  him  to  inquire  whether  he  was  straying  be- 
yond the  limits  of  received  doctrine.  Not  reach- 
ing his  convictions  by  investigation  and  comparison 
of  opinions,  but  by  taking  a  fresh  view,  he  was  not 
apt  to  be  conscious  himself  or  to  remind  others  of 
any  startling  novelties  in  what  he  said.  He  went 
on,  without  looking  back  or  to  the  right  or  left. 
But  in  preaching  away  from  home,  especially  in 
the  larger  towns  where  the  newspaper  comments 
on  his  Boston  lectures  had  aroused  public  atten- 


RELIGION.  303 

tion,  he  could  not  help  being  aware  that  he  was 
looked  upon,  with  sympathy  or  with  suspicion,  as 
one  who  came  to  unsettle  Christian  belief. 

Nothing  was  farther  from  his  intention.  Even 
had  Christianity  appeared  to  him  a  delusion,  he 
would  not  have  been  prompt  to  say  so.  Those  who 
find  themselves  out  of  accord  with  the  popular  re- 
ligion, he  says  in  one  of  his  lectures,  "  wait  wisely 
to  see  what  unlooked-for  supports  the  old  faith  will 
show  when  assailed  ;  they  look  to  see  if  these 
doubts  or  these  convictions  of  their  private  mind 
are  shared  by  others.  And  still  they  never  make 
haste  to  announce  them.  It  were  needless,  per- 
haps mischievous,  to  shock  the  settled  faith  of 
others.  Let  them  gradually  find  out  the  defect, 
and  not  perhaps  till  new  and  real  stays  and  sup- 
ports shall  appear  to  take  their  place.  No  good 
man  vaunts  disbelief,  but  only  aims  to  put  a  real 
motive  and  law  in  the  place  of  the  false  ones  re- 
moved." 

Even  the  superstitions  and  falsehoods  (as  they 
deemed  them)  of  the  Puritan  theology,  against 
which  his  Liberal  brethren  were  contending,  were 
much  less  intolerable  to  him,  so  long  as  they  were 
united  with  genuine  piety.  Granting  that  there 
was  much  in  them  that  reason  would  reject,  "  yet 
falsehoods,  superstitions,  are  the  props,  the  scaffold- 
ing, on  which  how  much  of  society  stands.  The 
reason  why  the  secret  is  kept,  and  never  any  ac- 


304  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

cident  discovers  the  bankruptcy  and  produces  a 
permanent  revolution,  is  that  there  is  a  real  object 
in  nature  to  which  reverence  instinctively  turns. 
Of  this,  the  false  object  is  the  representative,  and 
is,  with  more  or  less  of  distrust,  honored  for  that 
for  which  it  ought  to  be."  (Journal,  1834.) 

The  feeling  that  there  had  been  some  loss  of 
reverence  in  the  zeal  of  investigation  and  the 
triumph  over  the  detection  of  errors  in  the  creed 
made  him  look  back  with  something  of  regret  to 
the  time  when  men  had  the  happiness  of  believing 
without  inquiry :  — 

"  These  Puritans  [he  writes  to  Miss  Mary  Em- 
erson, on  occasion  of  Dr.  Ripley's  death  in  1841], 
however  in  our  last  days  they  have  declined  into 
ritualists,  solemnized  the  heyday  of  their  strength 
by  the  planting  and  the  liberating  of  America. 
Great,  grim,  earnest  men,  I  belong  by  natural 
affinity  to  other  thoughts  and  schools  than  yours, 
but  my  affection  hovers  respectfully  about  your  re- 
tiring footsteps,  your  unpainted  churches,  strict 
platforms,  and  sad  offices ;  the  iron-gray  deacon, 
and  the  wearisome  prayer,  rich  with  the  diction  of 


But  he  was  very  far  from  regarding  the  Chris- 
tian religion  as  a  delusion.  He  could  not  share  the 
belief  in  the  particular  redemption  of  a  chosen 
portion  of  mankind,  but  he  rejected  it,  not  as  a  de- 
lusion but  as  a  narrowing  of  the  truth.  And  it 


RELIGION.  305 

was  upon  this  ground  that  he  had  parted  from  the 
Liberals ;  they  too  impoverished  divine  revelation 
by  confounding  the  tradition,  that  is,  the  particu- 
lar relation  to  persons  and  times,  with  the  revela- 
tion itself. 

"  I  believe  the  Christian  religion  to  be  profoundly 
true,  —  true  to  an  extent  that  they  who  are  styled 
its  most  orthodox  defenders  have  never  or  but  in 
rarest  glimpses  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime  reached. 
I  am  for  the  principles  ;  they  are  for  the  men. 
They  reckon  me  unbelieving ;  I,  with  better  rea-  / 
son,  them.  They  magnify  inspiration,  miracles, 
mediatorship,  the  Trinity,  baptism,  the  eucharist. 
I  let  them  all  drop  in  sight  of  the  glorious  beauty 
of  those  inward  laws  or  harmonies  which  ravished 
the  eye  of  Jesus,  of  Socrates,  of  Plato,  of  Dante,  of 
Milton,  of  George  Fox,  of  Swedenborg.  With 
regard  to  the  miracles  ascribed  to  Jesus,  I  suppose 
he  wrought  them.  If  (which  has  not  yet  been 
done)  it  should  be  shown  that  the  account  of  his 
miracles  is  only  the  addition  of  credulous  and  mis- 
taking love,  I  should  be  well  content  to  lose  them. 
Indeed,  I  should  be  glad.  No  person  capable  of 
perceiving  the  force  of  spiritual  truth  but  must  see 
that  the  doctrines  of  the  teacher  lose  ro  more  by 
this  than  the  law  of  gravity  would  lose  if  certain 
facts  alleged  to  have  taken  place  did  not  take 
place.  We  should  lose  an  argument  that  weighs 
with  those  whom  I  shall  never  seek  to  convince. 
A  miracle  is  a  patch,  an  afterthought. 


306  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  They  think  that  God  causes  a  miracle  to  make 
men  stare,  and  then  says,  Here  is  truth.  They  do 
not  and  will  not  perceive  that  it  is  to  distrust  the 
deity  of  truth,  its  invincible  beauty,  to  do  God  a 
high  dishonor,  so  to  depict  Him.  They  represent 
the  old  trumpery  of  God  sending  a  messenger  to 
raise  man  from  his  low  estate.  Well,  then,  he  must 
have  credentials,  and  the  miracle  is  the  credentials. 
I  answer,  God  sends  us  messengers  always.  I  am 
surrounded  by  messengers  of  God,  who  send  me 
credentials  day  by  day.  Jesus  is  not  a  solitary, 
but  still  a  lovely  herald."  (Journal,  1834.) 

"  Look  at  it  how  we  will,  the  most  wonderful 
fact  in  history  is  Christianity ;  the  fact  that  ten  or 
twenty  persons,  or,  if  you  please,  twice  so  many, 
did  receive,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  rev- 
elations of  the  moral  sentiment,  with  such  depth 
and  tenacity  as  to  live  and  die  in  and  for  them, 
and  to  propagate  their  statement  each  one  to  so 
wide  a  circle  of  contemporaries,  and  then  to  the 
next  age,  that  the  enthusiasm  got  a  footing  in  the 
world  and  throve  and  grew  into  this  great  Christen- 
dom we  know  so  well.  Their  statement  too  is  very 
impure,  very  unequal  to  the  fact.  They  were  in- 
structed by  their  heart,  not  by  their  head.  As 
pieces  of  argument,  their  sermons  and  letters  would 
never  be  read  ,  they  are  all  local  and  limitary,  nar- 
row, provincial,  levitical.  But  they  had  this  senti- 
ment of  humility  and  of  trust  in  the  Eternal.  They 


RELIGION.  307 

could  not  state  it  to  the  understanding,  but  they 
carried  it  in  their  heart,  and  it  gave  them  dominion 
over  nations  and  ages.  It  quickly  got  embodied, 
and  as  the  rapture  was  presently  lost  in  the  wide 
diffusion,  it  came  to  be  supposed  inherent  in  cer- 
tain times  and  persons.  But  now  in  every  country 
the  spiritual  nature  of  man  refuses  any  longer  to 
be  holden  in  the  wooden  stocks  of  the  tradition, 
and  insists  that  what  is  called  Christianity  shall 
take  rank,  not  formal  or  peculiar,  but  strictly  on 
its  universal  merits,  as  one  act  out  of  many  acts  of 
the  human  mind." 

The  Liberal  reaction,  in  the  midst  of  which  Em- 
erson was  born  and  brought  up,  was  at  bottom  a 
movement  towards  what  he  calls  "realism,"  —  sub- 
stitution of  the  religious  facts  for  names  and  tra- 
ditions. But  the  divergence  did  not  show  itself  at 
once,  in  its  full  significance,  on  the  surface.  If  the 
old  Church  held  to  the  tradition,  so  did  the  new ; 
the  reform  was  to  consist  in  restoring  the  tradition 
to  its  pristine  shape.  Yet  what  had  paralyzed  the 
Puritan  religion  was  not  the  shortcomings  of  its 
theology,  the  barbarity  of  the  dogmas,  but  the 
pretension  to  orthodoxy,  the  claim  to  shut  up  di- 
vine revelation  in  a  set  of  doctrines.  When  the 
measure  of  our  attainment  in  religious  truth  be- 
comes the  measure  of  the  truth  itself,  nothing  but 
stagnation  of  mind  can  save  belief  from  passing 
into  formalism,  into  indifference  or  covert  unbelief. 


308  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

This  was  what  had  happened  in  the  latter  days 
of  Puritanism.  The  Puritan  tenacity  in  holding 
on  to  dogmas  after  they  were  beginning  to  be  ob- 
solete —  and  the  more  crudely  and  literally  because 
they  were  obsolete  —  had  gradually  separated  the- 
ology from  religion,  and  the  Liberal  movement  is- 
suing from  Puritanism  found  the  understandings 
of  men  more  alive  than  their  religious  sentiment. 
It  was  easy  to  discredit  the  notion  of  a  triune  God ; 
it  was  not  easy  to  find  its  equivalent,  or  to  trans- 
late the  religious  meaning  into  a  more  acceptable 
form.  And  yet,  unless  this  were  done,  there  was 
a  break  in  the  tradition  that  might  countenance  the 
opinion  that  religion  was  outgrown.  An  expedient 
was  found  in  the  thought  that  the  revelation  had 
been  disfigured  by  human  additions  and  interpre- 
tations, and  that  all  that  was  needed  was  to  clear 
away  the  accretions  of  false  doctrine  which  had 
gathered  about  it  in  the  Dark  Ages,  and  bring  it 
back  to  the  purity  in  which  it  was  first  delivered. 

Foremost  among  these  disfigurements  was  the  cen- 
tral and  characteristic  doctrine  of  historical  Chris- 
tianity, the  dogma  of  the  double  nature  of  Jesus 
Christ.  This  was  to  be  rejected  as  the  fabrication 
of  men  ;  having  no  sufficient  warrant  in  Scripture. 
The  plain  sense  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  when 
examined  by  the  rules  which  we  apply  to  other  an- 
cient writings,  was  that  Jesus  was  a  man,  divinely 
commissioned  to  reveal  to  mankind  the  truths  of 


RELIGION.  309 

religion,  and  that  his  authority  to  speak  in  the 
name  of  God  was  proved  by  the  visible  miracles  he 
wrought. 

So  far  the  new  reform  was  free  to  go,  but  no 
farther.  It  was  free  to  reject  as  unauthorized  the 
settled  belief  of  Christendom  ever  since  the  first 
ages,  in  the  particular  which  all  the  Christian 
world  except  a  handful  of  neologists  agreed  in  re- 
garding as  the  most  certain  and  the  most  vital  of 
all ;  but  it  was  bound  to  conform  to  the  belief  of  • 
the  companions  and  immediate  successors  of  Jesus, 
and  to  accept  their  interpretation  of  his  words  and 
actions  as  the  only  evidence  of  the  revelation  he 
brought.  It  was  idle  to  suppose  that  the  spirit  of 
inquiry  once  roused  would  stop  here.  If  Christ 
was  God,  he  is  still  with  us,  speaking  in  the  voice 
of  conscience,  and  the  truth  of  his  teaching  is 
brought  home  to  the  believer  through  his  own  per- 
sonal experience.  If  he  was  a  man,  however  ex- 
alted above  the  rest  of  mankind,  his  message  was 
delivered  at  a  particular  time  and  place,  and  is 
received  by  us  at  second-hand,  through  report.  It 
must  be  taken  with  due  allowance  in  all  ways  for 
human  limitations.  His  religious  instructions  must 
have  been  adapted  to  the  comprehension  of  those 
who  were  to  receive  them ;  and  even  his  own  con- 
ceptions must  have  come  short  of  the  fulness  of 
divine  truth. 

The  dogma  of  the  double  nature  was  an  attempt 


310  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

to  get  rid  of  this  difficulty,  and  to  declare  the  end- 
lessness of  God's  communication  of  himself  without 
letting  go  the  reality  of  the  historical  revelation. 
But  if  the  dogma  was  rejected,  its  place  was  not 
filled  by  the  assumption  of  a  special  mission ;  for 
this  only  emphasized  the  limitations  of  time  and 
place,  and  brought  down  the  eternal  self -revelation 
of  God  to  the  level  of  a  particular  event  in  history. 
Thus,  as  the  position  of  Liberalism  (or  of  one 
.  section  of  it)  became  well  defined  and  confident, 
the  inquiry  it  had  set  on  foot  began  to  lose  its  reli- 
gious significance,  and  to  be  mixed  up  with  matters 
of  probable  reasoning.  It  was  inevitable  that  va- 
rious probabilities  would  present  themselves ;  and 
moreover  that  minds  in  which  religious  sentiment 
predominated  would  feel  that  the  truth  of  religion 
cannot  be  a  probability,  to  be  determined  by  the 
learned  investigations  of  theologians  and  metaphy- 
sicians, but  must  be  a  certainty,  obvious  and  inex- 
pugnable for  each  believer.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  for  whom  the  historical  evidences  were  suf- 
ficient, if  they  found  themselves  in  positions  of 
authority,  would  feel  themselves  called  upon  to 
declare  what  was  true  :  the  cry  of  infidelity  would 
be  raised  against  those  who  pretended  to  look  far- 
ther, and  the  position  of  free  inquiry  abandoned 
for  a  new  orthodoxy,  narrower  and  more  barefaced 
than  the  old,  since  the  only  ground  of  religious  cer- 
titude had  been  expressly  cut  away. 


RELIGION.  311 

It  was  in  this  direction  that  Liberalism,  or  at  least 
a  prominent  section  of  it,  was  tending.  It  was 
tending  to  become  a  sect,  with  its  proof-texts  and 
doctrines  essential  to  salvation,  at  any  rate  to  Chris- 
tian fellowship,  and  so  to  lose  the  reason  of  its 
existence.  The  true  ground  of  the  new  protest 
against  Protestantism  was  the  feeling  that  the  In- 
carnation, as  it  was  taught  even  in  Protestant 
churches,  but  poorly  represents  the  eternal  indwell- 
ing of  God  in  man,  conditioned  by  man's  obedience, 
which  was  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ.  His  parti- 
cipation of  the  divine  nature,  so  long  as  it  is  con- 
ceived as  the  contradiction  of  his  human  nature, 
leaves  his  mediatorship  and  our  redemption  unex- 
plained and  incomprehensible  ;  a  brute  fact,  without 
analogy  to  anything  in  our  experience.  There  is  no 
real  mediation,  no  exemplification  of  the  means 
whereby  we  may  become  partakers  of  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  but,  instead  of  this,  we  are  bidden  to  accept 
the  fact  that  by  divine  fiat  a  certain  portion  of  man- 
kind are  to  be  saved,  without  becoming  more  worthy 
of  salvation.  So  represented,  the  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions of  Jesus  are  not  as  our  thoughts  and  actions, 
and  can  afford  us  no  guidance,  no  motive  in  the  con- 
duct of  our  lives.  His  mission,  instead  of  demon- 
strating the  power  of  moral  sentiment  to  raise  man 
above  himself,  is  a  miraculous  expedient  to  make  up 
in  some  measure  for  the  want  of  any  such  power. 

It  was  an  easy  task  to  point  out  the  absence  of 


312  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

evidence  for  such  a  scheme  of  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence :  it  had  never  had  any  evidence  except  its 
explaining  certain  facts  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness, and  when  these  facts  changed  their  shape 
their  evidence  vanished  with  them.  But  to  stop 
here  would  be  to  involve  religion  in  the  reproach 
that  had  fallen  upon  theology.  The  part  of  Liber- 
alism, Emerson  thought,  was  to  ask  in  what  shape 
the  religious  facts  now  present  themselves ;  to  trans- 
late the  theological  metaphors  into  the  language  of 
real  life. 

To  Emerson  the  fact  that  was  imaged  in  the 
dogma  of  Christ's  divinity  is  the  infinitude  of  man's 
nature  ;  the  boundless  inspiration  that  opens  to 
him  as  he  opens  himself  to  receive  it.  The  Liberal 
preachers,  he  thought,  in  place  of  occupying  them- 
selves with  the  speculative  errors  of  Calvinism,  or 
with  any  questions  of  ontology,  ought  to  take  their 
stand  upon  the  ground  of  universal  human  experi- 
ence, and  call  upon  men  to  behold  the  presence  of 
God  in  every  gleam  of  human  virtue,  however  dim 
and  distorted,  and  not  merely  in  the  eminent  exam- 
ple of  Jesus.  They  ought  to  present  the  idea  of 
salvation,  not  as  a  mystic  formula,  but  as  a  univer- 
sal truth,  realized  wherever  a  man,  through  death 
to  selfishness,  rises  to  the  life  of  humanity,  —  a  life 
governed  by  the  perception  that  all  private  and 
separate  good  is  a  delusion. 

There   was    nothing    novel  in  the  conception. 


RELIGION.  313 

Dr.  Charming,  ten  years  before,  at  Mr.  Farley's  or- 
dination in  Providence,  had  declared  that  God  is 
another  name  for  human  excellence  raised  to  an 
ideal  perfection,  and  that  true  religion  consists  in 
unfolding  his  nature  within  us.  Else  we  should 
be  as  incapable  of  receiving  a  law  from  heaven 
as  the  brute ;  the  thunders  of  Sinai  might  startle 
the  outward  ear,  but  would  have  no  meaning  or 
authority  for  the  soul.  What  Christ  reveals  is 
that  heaven  is  the  perfection  of  the  mind,  and  he 
reveals  it  by  exemplifying  it.1 

But,  to  the  Liberals  in  general,  this  seemed  rather 
dangerous  doctrine.  They  welcomed  Channing's 
aid  in  denying  that  Jesus  Christ  was  God,  but  they 
were  not  ready  to  admit  that  he  was  a  man.  They 
said  he  was  a  man  like  ourselves,  but  in  the  same 
breath  they  spoke  of  him  as  our  Saviour,  the  Author 
and  Finisher  of  our  faith,  and  thereby  removed  him 
as  far  as  ever  from  the  sphere  of  human  experience. 

So  far  as  these  titles  were  only  the  overflow  of 
an  enthusiastic  affection  that  does  not  measure  its 
words,  there  was  nothing  in  them  that  was  repug- 
nant to  Emerson,  any  more  than  to  Channing,  who 
often  used  such  language  in  his  sermons.  The 
Sabbath,  with  its  hallowed  associations  and  lan- 
guage redolent  of  the  ages  of  faith,  Emerson  says 

i  Channing' a  Works.  Boston,  1862:  iii.  228-32.  And  the  Ser- 
mon at  the  installation  of  Rev.  Hellish  Irving  Motte,  Emerson's 
classmate,  in  the  same  year  (1828). 


314  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

reminded  him  of  his  "  inherited  advantages  in  a  cer- 
tain normal  piety,  a  levitical  education.  I  cannot 
hear  the  young  men  whose  theological  instruction 
is  exclusively  owed  to  Cambridge  and  to  public  in- 
stitution without  feeling  how  much  happier  was 
my  star,  which  rained  on  me  influences  of  ances- 
tral religion."  (Journal,  1837.) 

"  We  are  learning  to  look  as  on  chivalry  at  the 
sweetness  of  the  ancient  piety  which  makes  the 
genius  of  A  Kempis,  Scougal,  Taylor,  Herbert.  It 
is  a  beautiful  mean,  equidistant  from  the  hard, 
sour  Puritan  on  one  side  and  the  empty  negation 
of  Rationalism  on  the  other.  It  is  the  spirit  of 
David  and  of  Paul.  Who  shall  restore  to  us  the 
odoriferous  Sabbaths  that  made  the  earth  and  the 
humble  roof  a  sanctity?" 

There  might  be  much  in  them  that  a  severe 
common  sense  would  condemn,  but  the  very  affront 
to  common  sense  was  a  tribute  to  the  depth  of  sen- 
timent from  which  they  came :  — 

"  It  seemed  to  me,  at  church  to-day,  that  the 
Communion  Service,  as  it  is  now  and  here  cele- 
brated, is  a  document  of  the  dulness  of  the  race. 
Then  presently,  when  I  thought  of  the  divine  soul 
of  my  Nazarene,  whose  name  is  used  here,  and 
considered  how  these  my  good  neighbors,  the  bend- 
ing deacons  with  their  cups  and  plates,  would  have 
straightened  themselves  to  sturdiness  if  the  propo- 
sition came  before  them  to  honor  thus  a  known 


RELIGION.  315 

fellow-man,  I  was  constrained  to  feel  the  force 
of  genius  that,  hallowing  once  those  Hebrew  lips, 
should  propagate  its  influence  thus  far,  and  not  be 
quite  utterly  lost  in  these  ultimate  shoals  and  shores 
of  our  Concord  congregation." 

He  had  refused  to  administer  the  Communion  ; 
but  when  his  friend  Dr.  Bartol  afterwards  came 
to  consult  him  upon  similar  scruples,  Emerson  ad- 
vised him  to  remain  at  his  post.  It  was  better,  he 
thought,  to  remain  in  the  existing  forms  and  up- 
lift and  vivify  them  by  faith,  so  long  as  that  was 
possible.  And  the  possibility  was  a  question  of 
fact  which  every  one  must  decide  for  himself.  We 
might  be  giving  too  much  importance  to  forms,  in 
our  readiness  to  cry  out  against  them,  as  well  as  in 
upholding  them. 

"  He  is  shallow  [Emerson  writes  in  his  journal] 
who  rails  at  men  and  their  contrivances,  and  does 
not  see  Divinity  behind  all  their  institutions  and 
all  their  fetches ;  even  such  as  are  odious  and 
paltry." 

"  It  is  not  good  to  say  with  too  much  precision 
and  emphasis  that  we  are  encroached  upon  by  the 
claims  of  Jesus  in  the  current  theology.  It  brings 
us  into  a  cold,  denying,  unreligious  state  of  mind." 

Still,  where  adherence  to  tradition  goes  so  far  as 
to  become  the  substitute  for  faith,  we  are  forced  to 
protest : — 

"Our  quoting  of  Scripture  seems  to  deny  the 


316  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

omnipresence,  the  eternity  of  God.  Once  He  spoke 
through  good  men  these  special  words.  Now,  if 
we  have  aught  high  and  holy  to  do,  we  must  wrench 
somehow  their  words  to  speak  it  in ;  we  have  none 
of  our  own.  Humbly  rather  let  us  go  and  ask 
God's  leave  to  use  the  hour  and  language  that  now 
is.  Cannot  you  ransack  the  graveyards  and  get 
your  great-grandfathers'  clothes  also?  It  is  like 
the  single  coat  in  Santa  Lucia,  in  which  the  island- 
ers one  by  one  paid  their  respects  to  the  new  gov- 
ernor." (Journal,  1838.) 

The  ascriptions  of  honor  to  Jesus  in  the  new 
theology,  Emerson  thought  betrayed  a  want  of 
faith  in  his  doctrine.  He  is  not  truly  honored  by 
setting  him  up  apart  from  his  fellow-men,  as  the 
recipient  of  a  peculiar  inspiration  from  which  they 
are  excluded,  for  that  is  virtually  denying  the  uni- 
versality and  the  authority  of  his  revelation.  In 
that  view  he  does  not  reveal  God  to  us,  but  com- 
municates a  particular  theology  which  we  are  to 
receive  upon  his  word  ;  as  the  Jews  received  their 
theology  from  the  Scribes.  This  is  to  build  our 
church  on  the  language  of  Jesus,  and  not  on  his 
principles.  His  glory  is  that  he  sets  aside  all  sec- 
ond-hand teaching  and  all  probable  opinions  about 
religion,  and  calls  upon  men  to  listen  to  the  eternal 
revelation  in  the  breast ;  the  voice  of  God  speak- 
ing the  same  truth  in  an  ever-fresh  sense  to  each. 
Jesus  did  not  condemn  the  teaching  of  the  Scribes 


RELIGION.  317 

because  it  was  false,  but  because  it  usurped  the  au- 
thority of  conscience.  His  faith,  if  we  had  it  in- 
stead of  talking  about  it,  would  make  us  look  be- 
yond any  attainment  of  human  wisdom  or  virtue, 
even  his  own.  His  true  title  to  our  supreme  rev- 
erence among  the  sons  of  men  is  that  he  fills  us 
with  a  sense  of  the  endlessness  of  divine  truth  and 
of  our  capacity  for  it.  It  was  not  his  faith,  but  the 
want  of  it,  the  spiritual  deadness  of  the  age,  that 
showed  itself  in  the  consecration  of  his  person,  his 
words,  and  actions.  The  thought  that  a  man,  a  be- 
ing in  all  things  like  ourselves,  could  be  so  filled 
with  the  consciousness  of  God's  presence  as  to  lose 
sight  of  his  own  individuality,  and  to  think  and  act 
as  universal  man,  was  presented  from  the  Liberal 
pulpits  as  something  so  monstrous  that  it  could 
only  be  admitted  after  reason  had  been  stunned 
by  a  portent  from  the  sky. 

These  thoughts  had  long  moved  Emerson  with 
the  desire  to  rouse  his  fellow-believers  to  a  more 
lively  sense  of  what  their  belief  really  meant,  and 
to  persuade  them  to  bring  their  professions  of  faith 
into  nearer  accord  with  the  reality.  He  had  no 
wish  to  attack  the  popular  idols ;  he  only  wished 
that  they  should  not  obscure  the  real  objects  of 
worship.  What  these  objects  were  was  too  plain 
to  need  argument,  but  to  set  them  in  their  place 
might  require  gifts  which  he  had  not,  —  which  he 
hoped  to  attain  through  patient  faithfulness  to  his 
convictions :  — 


818  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  When  the  young  philosopher  forgets  men's 
opinions,  nothing  seems  so  worthy  employment,  or 
rather  life,  as  religious  teaching.  If  I  could  per- 
suade men  to  listen  to  their  interior  conviction ;  if 
I  could  express,  embody,  their  interior  convictions, 
that  were  indeed  life.  It  were  to  cease  being  a 
figure,  and  to  act  the  action  of  a  man.  But,  for 
that  work,  he  must  be  free  and  true.  He  must  not 
seek  to  weld  what  he  believes  to  what  he  does  not 
wish  publicly  to  deny."  (Journal,  1835.) 

He  might  have  preferred,  he  says,  the  ministra- 
tions of  the  Church  of  England  or  of  Kome  as  the 
medium  of  public  worship ;  since  here  was  at  least 
the  form  of  worship,  a  public  acknowledgment  of 
God's  presence,  instead  of  opinions  about  Him. 
But  they  were  committed  and  exclusive,  whilst  the 
Unitarian  pulpit  was  still  open.  Yet  here  also 
he  found,  he  says,  the  dear  old  church  still  in  his 
way.  In  the  Unitarian  pulpits  he  was  allowed  and 
expected  to  assume  that  Christ  was  a  man,  but  he 
was  expected  at  the  same  time  to  acknowledge  that 
the  record  of  Christ's  teaching  was  the  sum  of  di- 
vine revelation. 

He  did  not  propose  to  take  the  position  by 
storm,  but  he  thought  it  might  be  tiirned  by  simply 
keeping  on  his  way,  manifesting  his  own  faith,  and 
ignoring  all  that  he  rejected.  If  he  could  touch 
the  right  chord  in  men's  minds,  all  would  feel  that 
the  ignoring  of  Christ's  official  authority  was  the 


RELIGION.  319 

recognition  of  his  real  and  living  authority,  —  the 
only  authority  that  brings  its  own  credentials  and 
is  independent  of  human  support. 

This  was  the  experiment  he  had  proposed  to  try 
in  Mr.  Farley's  pulpit.  He  wrote  in  his  journal  a 
year  or  two  before  :  — 

"  It  were  worth  trial  whether  the  distinction  be- 
tween a  spiritual  and  a  traditional  religion  cannot 
be  made  apparent  to  an  ordinary  congregation. 
There  are  parts  of  faith  so  real  and  self-evident 
that,  when  the  mind  rests  in  them,  the  pretensions 
of  the  most  illuminated  sect  pass  for  nothing.  But 
to  show  men  the  nullity  of  church-going  compared 
with  the  real  exaltation  of  their  being,  I  think 
might  even  promote  parish  objects,  and  draw  them 
to  church.  To  show  the  reality  and  infinite  depth 
of  spiritual  laws  —  that  all  the  maxims  of  Christ 
are  true  to  the  core  of  the  world ;  that  there  is 
not,  cannot  be,  any  cheating  of  nature  —  might  be 
apprehended.  I  should  begin  with  my  old  saws  : 
that  nothing  can  be  given  ;  everything  is  sold :  that 
love  compels  love  ;  hatred,  hatred  :  that  action  and 
reaction  are  always  equal,  and  no  evil  exists  in 
society  but  has  its  check,  which  coexists :  nothing 
is  free  but  the  will  of  man,  and  that  only  to  pro- 
cure his  own  virtue :  punishment  not  follows  but 
accompanies  crime.  'Mere  morality?'  It  is  the 
distinction  of  Christianity  that  it  is  moral :  all  that 
is  personal  in  it  is  naught.  When  any  one  comes 


320  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

who  speaks  with  better  insight  into  moral  nature, 
he  will  be  the  new  gospel.  If  I  could  put  within 
your  grasp  what  you  now  dimly  apprehend,  make 
you  feel  the  moral  sublime,  you  would  never  think 
of  denying  my  inspiration." 

When  the  experiment  failed,  he  turned  back  to 
the-  lyceum  and  the  lecturer'-s  platform,  still  feel- 
ing that  his  true  place  was  in  the  pulpit,  and  that 
a  happier  day  might  restore  him  to  it.  He  writes 
in  his  journal  in  1840  :  — 

"  In  all  my  lectures  I  have  taught  one  doctrine, 
namely,  the  infinitude  of  the  private  man.  This 
the  people  accept  readily  enough  and  even  with 
loud  commendation  as  long  as  I  call  the  lecture 
Art,  or  Politics,  or  Literature,  or  the  Household  ; 
but  the  moment  I  call  it  Religion  they  are  shocked, 
though  it  be  only  the  application  of  the  same  truth 
which  they  receive  everywhere  else,  to  a  new  class 
of  facts." 

The  very  different  reception  which  the  doctrine 
met  when  it  was  presented  on  a  week-day  under 
the  guise  of  a  literary  entertainment,  in  the  ora- 
tion on  the  "  American  Scholar,"  before  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  in  August,  and  in  the  lectures 
on  "  Human  Culture  "  in  December,  seems  to  have 
determined  Emerson  to  relinquish  the  slight  hold 
he  still  had  on  the  church,  and  he  informed  the 
Lexington  committee  early  in  the  winter  that  he 
meant  to  give  up  his  charge  there. 


RELIGION.  321 

The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  speech  (August  31, 1837), 
Mr.  Lowell  says,  "  was  an  event  without  any  for- 
mer parallel  in  our  literary  annals,  a  scene  always 
to  be  treasured  in  the  memory  for  its  picturesque- 
ness  and  its  inspiration.  What  crowded  and 
breathless  aisles,  what  windows  clustering  with 
eager  heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  approval,  what 
grim  silence  of  foregone  dissent !  " l 

The  scholar's  duties,  Emerson  said,  are  all  com- 
prised in  self-trust.  He  is  to  feel  himself  inspired 
by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires  all  men. 
In  the  distribution  of  functions  he  is  the  delegated 
intellect :  his  office  is  to  transmute  life  into  truth ; 
to  detach  the  events  and  the  business  of  life  from 
their  accidental  associations,  and  show  them  in 
their  true  order ;  to  unsettle  all  conventional  values, 
and  rate  everything  at  its  true  worth  to  mankind. 
He  is  to  cheer,  to  raise,  and  to  guide  men  by  show- 
ing them  facts  amidst  appearances.  "  These  being 
his  functions,  it  becomes  him  to  feel  all  confidence 
in  himself,  and  to  defer  never  to  the  popular  cry. 
Let  him  not  quit  his  belief  that  a  popgun  is  a 
popgun,  though  the  ancient  and  honorable  of  the 
earth  affirm  it  to  be  the  crack  of  doom." 

The  oration,  says  Dr.  Holmes,  was  "  our  Intel- 
lectual Declaration  of  Independence ; "  a  much- 
needed  monition  to  the  cultivated  class  of  persons 
in  New  England  to  think  for  themselves  instead  of 
taking  their  opinions  from  Europe  or  from  books. 
1  My  Study  Windows.  Boston,  1871 :  p.  197. 


822  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

The  lectures  on  "  Human  Culture  "  in  the  fol- 
lowing winter  were  an  expansion  of  the  same 
thought.  The  individual  is  the  whole,  —  is  the 
world.  Man,  who  has  been  in  how  many  tedious 
ages  esteemed  an  appendage  to  his  fortunes,  to  a 
trade,  to  an  army,  to  a  law,  to  a  state,  now  discov- 
ers that  these  things,  nay,  the  great  globe  itself 
and  all  which  it  inherits,  are  but  counterparts  of 
mighty  faculties  that  dwell  peacefully  in  his  mind  ; 
and  that  it  is  a  state  of  disease  which  makes  him 
the  servant  of  his  auxiliaries  and  effects.  Culture 
is  the  unfolding  of  these  potentialities.  The  only 
motive  at  all  commensurate  with  his  force  is  the 
ambition  to  discover  his  latent  powers,  and  to  this 
the  trades  and  occupations  which  men  follow,  the 
connections  they  form,  their  fortunes  in  the  world, 
and  their  particular  actions  are  subordinate  and 
auxiliary.  The  true  culture  is  a  discipline  so  uni- 
versal as  to  demonstrate  that  no  part  of  a  man 
was  made  in  vain. 

The  demonstration  is  carried  out  in  successive 
lectures  on  "  The  Hands,"  "  The  Head,"  "  The  Eye 
and  Ear,"  "  The  Heart,"  "  Being  and  Seeming," 
"  Prudence,"  "  Heroism,"  "  Holiness :  "  that  is  to 
say,  man's  education  by  manual  labor;  by  the 
perception  of  truth ;  by  the  sense  of  beauty,  in  art 
and  in  poetry ;  by  his  affections  (his  "  otherism  " 
Emerson  calls  this  part  of  man's  nature),  and  the 
reaction  of  the  will  against  the  tendency  of  his 


RELIGION.  323 

social  disposition  to  involve  him  in  tradition  and 
routine ;  by  the  economy  of  his  daily  living,  and 
the  stand  he  is  sometimes  called  upon  to  make 
against  it ;  lastly,  by  the  highest  ascension  of  the 
soul,  the  dominion  of  the  moral  sentiment. 

Large  portions  of  these  lectures  appeared  after- 
wards in  the  Essays,  especially  those  of  the  first 
series ;  the  lecture  on  "  Prudence  "  is  given  there 
almost  entire  ;  also,  I  suppose,  that  on  "  Heroism," 
the  manuscript  of  which  is  wanting.  It  was  in 
this  lecture  that  he  spoke  of  Lovejoy  (who  had 
been  killed  by  a  pro-slavery  mob  in  Illinois  a  few 
months  before)  as  a  martyr  for  the  rights  of  free 
speech  and  opinion ;  whereat,  says  Mr.  George  P. 
Bradford,  "  some  of  his  friends  and  sympathizers 
felt  the  sort  of  cold  shudder  which  ran  through 
the  audience  at  the  calm  braving  of  the  current 
opinion."  l 

The  attendance  on  this  course  was  large,  and 
"much  larger  [he  writes  in  his  journal]  at  the 
close  than  at  the  beginning.  I  think  five  hundred 
persons  at  the  closing  lectures.  A  very  gratifying 
interest  on  the  part  of  the  audience  was  evinced  in 
the  views  offered,  which  were  drawn  chiefly  out  of 
the  materials  already  collected  in  this  journal. 
The  ten  lectures  were  read  on  ten  pleasant  winter 
evenings  on  consecutive  Wednesdays.  Thanks  to 
the  Teacher  of  me  and  of  all,  the  Upholder,  the 

1  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  iv.  306. 


324  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

Health-giver;    thanks  and  lowliest  wondering  ac- 
knowledgment." 

A  few  days  afterwards  he  wrote  to  his  wife :  — 

February  19,  1838. 

.  .  .  Yesterday  I  went  to  Lexington  and  told  the 
committee  I  wished  to  put  off  my  charge  there, 
and,  if  possible,  commit  it  to  Mr.  [John  Sullivan] 
Dwight.  They  consent,  provided  I  engage  to  sup- 
ply and  then  send  Mr.  Dwight,  rather  than  put  it 
on  them  to  engage  him.  It  is  a  trifle,  and  I  sub- 
mit, astonished  to  arrive  at  the  dignity  of  patron- 
age. But  does  not  the  Eastern  Lidian,  my  Pales- 
tine, mourn  to  see  the  froward  man  cutting  the 
last  threads  that  bind  him  to  that  prized  gown  and 
band,  the  symbols  black  and  white  of  old  and  dis- 
tant Judah  ? 

Yet,  while  speaking  thus  lightly,  he  felt  it  to  be  a 
serious  misfortune  that  the  vantage-ground  of  the 
pulpit  should  be  lost  for  want  of  ability  or  dispo- 
sition in  those  who  occupied  it  to  realize  the  mean- 
ing of  the  words  they  used.  He  did  not  disguise 
from  himself  the  difficulties  of  the  attempt,  but, 
difficult  or  not,  it  ought  to  be  made. 

"It  seemed  to  me  [he  writes  in  his  journal, 
March,  1838]  when  I  described  the  possible  church, 
as  if  very  hardly  could  any  such  sincerity  and  sin- 
gleness be  retained  as  was  needful  to  a  worship; 


-       RELIGION.  325 

very  hardly  even  by  such  saints  and  philosophers 
as  I  could  name.  This  morbid  delicacy  of  the  re- 
ligious sentiment,  this  thin  existence  fluttering  on 
the  very  verge  of  non-existence,  accuses  our  pov- 
erty, jejune  life.  It  will  be  better  by  and  by,  will 
it  not  ?  Will  it  not,  when  habitual,  be  more  solid, 
and  admit  of  the  action  of  the  will  without  de- 
ceasing ?  " 

He  felt  the  difficulty  in  his  own  case  in  a  want 
of  that  definiteness  of  views  and  heat  in  enforcing 
them  which  is  a  main  secret  of  persuasive  speech. 
People  like  a  preacher  who  has  made  up  his  mind 
and  can  tell  what  is  to  be  believed  and  what  is  to 
be  done.  Emerson  himself  somewhere  remarks  that 
we  do  not  listen  readily  to  one  who  we  feel  is  not 
committed  to  what  he  says.  Now  Emerson  was 
never  committed,  had  never  made  up  his  mind. 
"  I  am  always  insincere  [he  says  a]  as  always  know- 
ing there  are  other  moods."  He  was  never  insin- 
cere, but  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  moralist  of 
equal  earnestness  and  entireness  of  conviction  who 
is  so  little  engaged  to  his  own  opinions.  He  was 
not  only  ready,  but  eager,  to  admit  that  the  truth 
may  justify  other  conclusions.  Here  is  the  ground 
of  his  enjoyment  of  Montaigne,  in  spite  of  much 
in  Montaigne  that  repelled  him.  He  had  nothing 
of  Montaigne's  intellectual  epicureanism,  but  he 
heartily  sympathized  with  his  impatience  of  all 

i  "  Nominalist  and  Realist."     Greeted  Writings,  iii.  235. 


326  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

pretensions  to  lay  down  the  law.  He  goes  beyond 
Montaigne  in  this,  for  Montaigne  is  apt  to  be  dog- 
matical in  his  skepticism ;  doubt  seems  to  him  the 
height  and  the  end  of  wisdom ;  to  Emerson  it  is 
only  the  means.  Dislike  of  systematic  reasoning 
was  not  with  him  the  effect  of  a  despair  of  truth, 
a  settled  conviction  that  we  can  never  know  any- 
thing for  certain,  but  it  came  from  the  feeling  that 
our  apprehension  of  truth  ought  to  assure  us  that 
it  does  not  end  where  we  lose  sight  of  it. 

This  catholicity  of  mind,  which  was  as  natural 
and  easy  to  Emerson  as  partisanship  is  to  most  of 
us,  was  no  doubt  an  essential  condition  of  his  pecul- 
iar influence.  But  it  was  not  favorable  to  success 
as  a  preacher.  "  There  is  no  strong  performance 
[he  says]  without  a  little  fanaticism  in  the  per- 
former ; "  and  nowhere  is  it  more  needed  than  in 
one  who  would  convert  men  to  better  ways  of  think- 
ing about  religion  by  discourse  from  the  pulpit. 
All  presumptions  are  against  him,  and  they  can  be 
dislodged  only  by  creating  in  the  minds  of  his 
hearers  a  new  set  of  images,  making  them  see  the 
objects  of  worship  as  he  sees  them ;  and  for  this 
purpose  there  must  be  a  singleness  of  view  that 
peremptorily  excludes  all  other  views. 

Emerson  admired,  perhaps  sometimes  envied, 
the  "  absolute  tone  "  of  some  of  his  contemporaries 
or  immediate  predecessors:  Buckminster,  Chan- 
ning,  Greenwood  ;  the  imperious  rhetoric  of  Car- 


RELIGION.  327 

lyle;  the  affluent  imagery  of  Father  Taylor,  the 
Methodist  preacher  to  the  sailors,1  —  nothing  so 

1  Emerson,  while  he  was  at  the  Second  Church,  sometimes 
preached  at  Taylor's  Bethel,  and  Taylor  afterwards  lectured  and 
preached  in  Concord,  and  spent  the  night  at  Emerson's  house. 
"  A  wonderful  man  [Emerson  writes  in  his  diary]  ;  I  had  almost 
said  a  perfect  orator.  The  utter  want  and  loss  of  all  method, 
the  bright  chaos  come  again  of  his  bewildering  oratory  certainly 
bereaves  it  of  power,  —  but  what  splendor,  what  sweetness,  what 
richness,  what  depth,  what  cheer  !  The  Shakspeare  of  the  sailor 
and  the  poor.  God  has  found  one  harp  of  divine  melody  to  ring 
and  sigh  sweet  music  amidst  caves  and  cellars.  He  is  an  exam- 
ple, —  I  at  this  moment  say,  the  single  example  we  have  of  an 
inspiration  ;  for  a  wisdom  not  his  own,  not  to  be  appropriated  by 
him,  which  he  cannot  recall  or  even  apply,  sails  to  him  on  the 
gale  of  this  sympathetic  communication  with  his  auditory.  He  is 
a  very  charming  object  to  me.  I  delight  in  his  great  personality, 
the  way  and  sweep  of  the  man  which,  like  a  frigate's  way,  takes 
up  for  the  time  the  centre  of  the  ocean,  paves  it  with  a  white 
street,  and  all  the  lesser  craft  do  courtesy  to  him  and  do  him  rev- 
erence. The  wonderful  and  laughing  life  of  his  illustrations 
keeps  us  broad  awake ;  a  string  of  rockets  all  night.  He  de- 
scribed his  bar-room  gentry  as  '  hanging,  like  a  half-dead  bird, 

over  a  counter. '  He  describes out  on  her  errands  of  charity 

'  running  through  the  rain  like  a  beach-bird. '  '  I  am  half  a  hun- 
dred years  old,  and  I  have  never  seen  an  unfortunate  day  ;  there 
are  none.'  '  I  have  been  in  all  the  four  quarters  of  the  world, 
and  I  never  saw  any  men  I  could  not  love.'  '  The  world  is  just 
large  enough  for  the  people ;  there 's  no  room  for  a  partition 
wall.'  What  an  eloquence  he  suggests !  Ah !  could  he  guide 
those  grand  sea-horses  with  which  he  caracoles  on  the  waters  of 
the  sunny  ocean !  But  no,  he  is  drawn  up  and  down  the  ocean 
currents  by  the  strong  sea-monsters  only  on  that  condition,  that 
he  shall  not  guide." 

Taylor,  on  his  part,  loved  Emerson,  though  of  Transcendental- 
ism he  had  but  a  low  opinion.  Dr.  John  Pierce  records  in  his 


328  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

quickly  attracted  him  in  other  men.  But,  for  him- 
self, had  the  choice  been  open  to  him,  he  would 
after  all,  I  think,  have  preferred  his  own  lot  with 
its  compensations.  He  must  be  free ;  but  these 
men  were  the  victims  of  their  faculty ;  their  power 
was  conditioned  by  the  poverty  of  their  aims.  His 
aim  was  to  keep  his  mind  open  to  new  light  and 
to  spur  men  up  to  doing  the  like.  This,  he  was 
coming  to  see,  was  the  necessity  of  his  nature,  and 
he  accepted  it  as  he  accepted  every  other  fact, 
with  serenity,  but  not  without  a  moment  of  regret, 
since  it  involved  the  failure  of  his  cherished  pur- 
pose. 

"  I  lament  [he  writes  in  his  journal,  1838-39] 
that  I  find  in  me  no  enthusiasm,  no  resources  for 
the  instruction  and  guidance  of  the  people  when 
they  shall  discover  that  their  present  guides  are 
blind.  This  Convention  of  Education  is  cold,  but 
I  should  perhaps  affect  a  hope  that  I  do  not  feel  if 

diary  with  cordial  sympathy  a  saying  of  Taylor's  on  coining  out 
from  hearing  some  Transcendental  discourse  :  "It  would  take  as 
many  sermons  like  that  to  convert  a  human  soul  as  it  would  quarts 
of  skimmed  milk  to  make  a  man  drunk. "  But  of  Emerson  he  said 
to  Governor  Andrew  :  "  Mr.  Emerson  is  one  of  the  sweetest  crea- 
tures God  ever  made ;  there  is  a  screw  loose  somewhere  in  the 
machinery,  yet  I  cannot  tell  where  it  is,  for  I  never  heard  it  jar. 
He  must  go  to  heaven  when  he  dies,  for  if  he  went  to  hell  the 
devil  would  not  know  what  to  do  with  him.  But  he  knows  no 
more  of  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  than  Balaam's  ass  did 
•f  the  principles  of  the  Hebrew  grammar."  (Mrs.  E.  D.  Cheney, 
at  the  Memorial  meeting  at  Concord,  July  28,  1884.) 


fiELIGION.  329 

I  were  bidden  to  counsel  it.  I  hate  preaching, 
whether  in  pulpits  or  in  teachers'  meetings.  Preach- 
ing is  a  pledge,  and  I  wish  to  say  what  I  feel  and 
think  to-day,  with  the  proviso  that  to-morrow  per- 
haps I  shall  contradict  it  all.  Freedom  boundless 
I  wish." 

The  attitude  of  inquiry  is  not  the  attitude  of 
worship,  nor  are  men  readily  united  in  a  church  by 
throwing  them  on  themselves.  Emerson's  faith 
was  full  enough  to  keep  its  course  after  it  had  left 
the  traditionary  channels,  but  it  had  not  the  abun- 
dance that  was  needed  to  overflow  and  inundate  the 
creeks  and  shallows  of  "  an  ordinary  congregation." 
He  could  not  communicate  the  security  of  his  own 
hold  upon  the  realities  of  religion  amid  the  uni- 
versal thaw  and  dissolution  of  the  forms,  and  new 
forms  had  not  defined  themselves  with  sufficient 
clearness  to  his  mind.  Yet,  though  he  felt  it  to  be 
out  of  his  power  to  fulfil  the  requirements,  the 
need  of  the  pulpit  to  the  community  appeared  to 
him  as  vital  as  ever.  He  writes  in  his  diary  in 
1838:- 

"  I  dislike  to  be  a  clergyman  and  refuse  to  be 
one.  Yet  how  rich  a  music  would  be  to  me  a  holy 
clergyman  in  my  town  !  It  seems  to  me  he  cannot 
be  a  man,  quite  and  whole ;  yet  how  plain  is  the 
need  of  one,  and  how  high  —  yes,  highest  —  is  the 
function !  " 

He  would  at  least  declare  his  sense  of  what  the 


330  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

requirements  were,  or,  any  way,  the  negative  condi- 
tions ;  what  must  be  avoided  if  public  worship  was 
to  retain  its  place  in  the  social  economy  :  — 

"  I  ought  to  sit  and  think,  and  then  write  a 
discourse  to  the  American  clergy,  showing  them, 
the  ugliness  and  unprofitableness  of  theology  and  ] 
churches  at  this  day,  and  the  glory  and  sweetness 
of  the  moral  nature,  out  of  whose  pale  they  are 
almost  wholly  shut.  Present  realism  as  the  front 
face,  and  remind  them  that  I  shrink  and  wince  as 
soon  as  the  prayers  begin,  and  am  very  glad  that 
my  tailor  has  given  me  a  large  collar  to  my  wrapper, 
the  prayers  are  so  bad." 

"If  I  go  into  the  churches  in  these  days,  I 
usually  find  the  preacher,  in  proportion  to  his  in- 
telligence, to  be  cunning,  so  that  the  whole  institu- 
tion sounds  hollow.  .  .  .  But  in  the  days  of  the 
Pilgrims  and  Puritans,  the  preachers  were  the  vic- 
tims of  the  same  faith  with  which  they  whipped 
and  persecuted  other  men,  and  their  sermons  are 
strong,  imaginative,  fervid,  and  every  word  a  cube 
of  stone." 

The  occasion  was  given,  a  day  or  two  afterwards, 
by  an  invitation  from  the  graduating  class  of  Di- 
vinity College,  Cambridge,  to  deliver  the  custom- 
ary discourse  upon  their  entering  the  active 
Christian  ministry.  His  address,  which  seems  to 
have  been  struck  off  at  a  heat,  is  the  only  one  of 
his  writings,  so  far  as  I  know,  upon  which  he  be- 


RELIGION.  331 

gan  by  making  a  regular  division  of  his  topic  into 
heads  ;  and  there  is  even  a  pretty  full  sketch  of  the 
exordium. 

He  knew  of  course  that  what  he  had  to  say  would 
not  be  acceptable  to  the  authorities  of  the  college, 
nor  perhaps  to  the  Unitarians  generally ;  but  the 
evils  he  deplored  were  so  obvious  that  there  could 
be  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  their  existence, 
whatever  might  be  the  best  way  of  getting  rid  of 
them.  He  writes  in  his  journal,  July  8th  :  — 

"  We  shun  to  say  that  which  shocks  the  religious 
ear  of  the  people,  and  to  take  away  titles  even  of 
false  honor  from  Jesus.  But  this  fear  is  an  im- 
potence to  command  the  moral  sentiment.  If  I  can 
so  imbibe  that  wisdom  as  to  utter  it  well,  instantly 
love  and  awe  take  place.  The  reverence  for  Jesus 
is  only  reverence  for  this ;  and,  if  you  can  carry 
this  home  to  any  man's  heart,  instantly  he  feels 
that  all  is  made  good,  and  that  God  sits  once  more 
on  his  throne.  When  I  have  as  clear  a  sense  as 
now  that  I  am  speaking  simple  truth,  without  any 
bias,  any  foreign  interest  in  the  matter,  all  rail- 
ing, all  unwillingness  to  hear,  all  danger  of  injury 
to  the  conscience,  dwindle  and  disappear.  I  refer 
to  the  discourse,  now  growing  under  my  eye,  to  the 
Divinity  School." 

The  discourse  was  delivered,  on  the  15th  of  July 
(1838),  in  the  chapel  of  the  school,  in  the  presence 
of  several  persons  besides  the  students,  among  them 


332  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

Reverend  Henry  TVare,  Jr.,  Emerson's  former  col- 
league at  the  Second  Church,  but  now  the  Profes- 
sor of  Sacred  Eloquence  and  the  Pastoral  Care. 
After  the  services,  Mr.  Ware  spoke  to  Emerson  in 
his  usual  friendly  way,  expressing  some  qualified 
assent,  which,  however,  he  found  himself  the  next 
day  obliged  still  further  to  qualify  in  a  letter  ex- 
pressing his  appreciation  of  "  the  lofty  ideas  and 
beautiful  images  of  spiritual  life  "  contained  in  the 
address,  but  confessing  that  some  of  Emerson's 
statements  appeared  to  him  more  than  doubtful, 
and  that  their  prevalence  would  tend  to  overthrow 
the  authority  and  influence  of  Christianity. 

Emerson  was  as  much  alive  to  the  danger  as 
were  most  of  his  Liberal  brethren,  perhaps  more 
alive  than  most  of  them. 

"  Consider  [he  writes  in  his  journal  at  this  time] 
that  always  a  license  attends  reformation.  We  say, 
Your  actions  are  not  registered  in  a  book  by  a 
recording  angel  for  an  invisible  king,  —  action  num- 
ber one,  number  two,  up  to  number  one  million,  — 
but  the  retribution  that  shall  be  is  the  same  retri- 
bution that  now  is.  Base  action  makes  you  base  ; 
holy  action  hallows  you.  Instantly  the  man  is  re- 
lieved from  a  terror  that  girded  him  like  a  belt, 
has  lost  the  energy  that  terror  gave  him,  and  when 
now  the  temptation  is  strong  he  will  taste  the  sin 
and  know.  Now  I  hate  the  loss  of  the  tonic.  The 
end  is  so  valuable ;  to  have  escaped  the  degrada* 


RELIGION.  333 

tion  of  a  crime  is  in  itself  so  pure  a  benefit  that  I 
should  not  be  very  scrupulous  as  to  the  means.  1 
would  thank  any  blunder,  any  sleep,  any  bigot,  any 
fool,  that  misled  me  into  such  a  good." 

But  it  was  a  danger  that  must  be  faced :  we  must 
be  saved,  if  we  are  saved  at  all,  by  the  strength 
of  our  convictions,  not  by  a  pious  regard  to  their 
weakness.  Was  not  the  alarm  at  scepticism  itself 
a  covert  scepticism  ?  Did  it  not  betray  a  want  of 
confidence  in  the  reality  of  religion  ? 

"  Truth  will  not  maintain  itself,  they  fancy,  un- 
less they  bolster  it  up ;  and  the  religion  of  God, 
the  being  of  God,  they  seem  to  think  dependent  on 
what  we  say  of  it.  This  is  the  natural  feeling  in 
the  mind  whose  religion  is  external.  It  cannot  sub- 
sist, it  suffers  shipwreck  if  its  faith  is  not  confirmed 
by  all  surrounding  persons.  A  believer,  a  mind 
whose  faith  is  consciousness,  is  never  disturbed  be- 
cause other  persons  do  not  yet  see  the  fact  which 
he  sees."  (Journal,  October,  1838.) 

Emerson  was  fully  alive  to  the  possible  risks 
from  the  decay  of  Calvinism.  "  The  popular  re- 
ligion [he  says]  is  an  excellent  constable."  But  if 
the  constable  was  disregarded,  might  it  not  be  that 
there  was  less  need  of  him  ?  Any  way  there  was 
nothing  on  the  surface  to  justify  the  apprehension 
that  the  bonds  of  society  were  relaxed.  Indeed, 
the  new  speculations  were  not  very  widely  heeded. 
Beyond  Boston  and  Cambridge,  and  here  and  there 


334  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

a  solitary  thinker  whom  they  influenced,  ortho- 
doxy still  reigned  supreme,  and  orthodoxy  looked 
down  with  unconcern  upon  the  squabblings  of  the 
rationalists  and  the  new  lights  who  had  usurped 
the  ancient  seats  of  piety  and  learning ;  not  per- 
haps distinguishing  very  clearly  between  the  dif- 
ferent parties.  Some  of  the  orthodox  newspapers 
even  had  a  good  word  for  Emerson,  and  defended 
him  against  the  attacks  of  the  Liberals. 

But  among  the  ministers  who  came  together  at 
the  Thursday  lecture  in  Boston,  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  stir,  which  communicated  itself  to  the  cir- 
cles they  influenced.  Hard  words  were  said,  and 
when  the  address  appeared  in  print  it  was  sharply 
attacked  in  the  Daily  Advertiser,  a  leading  Bos- 
ton newspaper  (August  27,  1838).  The  article 
was  not  signed,  but  it  was  generally  ascribed  to 
Mr.  Andrews  Norton,  ex-Professor  of  Biblical  Lit- 
erature in  the  Divinity  School;  a  man  of  acute 
intellect  and  a  commanding  personality,  and,  I 
suppose,  the  foremost  theologian  of  the  Liberal 
Christians.  After  a  general  anathema  upon  Miss 
Martineau,  the  atheist  Shelley,  Cousin,  Carl  vie, 
and  the  pantheist  Schleiermacher,  as  planters  or 
fosterers  of  the  new  school  of  Transcendentalism 
that  was  keeping  our  community  in  a  perpetual 
stir  with  ill-understood  notions,  obtained  by  blun- 
dering, at  second-hand,  through  the  crabbed  and 
disgusting  obscurity  of  the  worst  German  specu- 
latists,  it  comes  down  upon  Emerson's  address :  — 


RELIGION.  335 

"The  state  of  things  described  might  seem  a 
mere  insurrection  of  folly,  a  sort  of  Jack  Cade  re- 
bellion, which  must  soon  be  put  down,  if  those 
engaged  in  it  were  not  gathering  confidence  from 
neglect,  and  had  not  proceeded  to  attack  principles 
which  are  the  foundation  of  human  society  and  hu- 
man happiness.  Silly  women  and  silly  young  men, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  have  been  drawn  away  from  their 
Christian  faith,  if  not  divorced  from  all  that  can 
properly  be  called  religion.  The  evil  is  becoming 
for  the  time  disastrous  and  alarming,  and  of  this 
fact  there  could  hardly  be  a  more  extraordinary 
and  ill-boding  evidence  than  " Emerson's  dis- 
course ;  concerning  which  "  it  will  be  sufficient  to 
state  generally  that  the  author  professes  to  reject 
all  belief  in  Christianity  as  a  revelation,  .  .  .  and 
that  if  he  believes  in  God  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  term,  which  one  passage  might  have  led  his 
hearers  to  suppose,  his  language  is  very  ill-judged 
and  indecorous." 

The  article  concludes  by  explaining  that  the 
highly  respectable  officers  of  the  institution  were 
in  no  wise  responsible  for  this  insult  to  religion, 
which  was  not  invited  by  them,  but  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  graduating  class  ;  who  have  therefore 
become  accessories,  perhaps  innocent  accessories, 
to  the  commission  of  a  great  offence.  And  they 
are  warned  that,  should  any  one,  approving  the 
doctrines  of  this  discourse,  assume  the  character  of 


336  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

a  Christian  teacher,  he  would  deceive  his  hearers 
and  be  guilty  of  a  practical  falsehood,  for  the  most 
paltry  of  temptations ;  he  would  consent  to  live  a 
lie  for  the  sake  of  being  maintained  by  those  whom 
he  had  cheated. 

I  do  not  recall  this  "  storm  in  our  wash-bowl," 
as  Emerson  describes  it  in  a  letter  to  Carlyle,1 
with  any  wish  to  invite  reproach  upon  the  memory 
of  a  strenuous  servant  of  the  Lord,  whose  excess  of 
zeal  betrayed  him  into  these  uncharitable  expres- 
sions. They  were  only  the  weighty  declaration 
(perhaps  somewhat  overweighted)  of  what  many 
good  and  kindly  men,  some  of  them  well  inclined 
to  Emerson,  felt,  and  thought  should  be  declared. 
But  it  is  instructive  as  showing  how  firm  a  grasp 
orthodoxy  still  had  upon  minds  in  New  England 
for  whom  the  brains  of  it,  so  to  speak,  were  out ; 
who  had  expressly  repudiated  its  whole  theoretical 
foundation.  And  it  shows  how  natural  it  is  for 
the  most  advanced  views  in  religion,  where  they 
start  from  the  assumption  that  the  truth  is  a  de- 
positum,  a  definitive  communication  from  on  high, 
to  fall  into  intolerance  and  denunciation  of  any 
further  advance ;  how  the  last  reformer,  as  Emer- 
son says,  may  seem  to  reformers  more  damnable 
than  the  Pope  himself. 

This  was  no  doubt  an  extreme  case.  In  general, 
the  Liberal  Christians,  while  denouncing  Emer. 

1  Carlyle-Emerson  Correspondence,  i.  183. 


RELIGION.  337 

son's  opinions,  seem  to  have  been  careful  not  to  in- 
clude him  in  their  denunciations.  The  Christian 
Examiner,  the  leading  Unitarian  periodical  (then 
edited,  I  believe,  by  the  Reverend  James  Walker, 
himself  suspected  of  lax  opinions),  felt  obliged  to 
speak  of  the  address,  as  a  whole,  with  reprobation, 
as  neither  good  divinity  nor  good  sense,  but  still 
regarded  the  author  with  respect  and  friendship. 
Reverend  Chandler  Robbins,  Emerson's  successor 
at  the  Second  Church,  declared  in  the  Christian 
Register  that  Emerson  had  never  been  considered 
a  regular  Unitarian  minister,  but  that  he  was  a 
highly  gifted,  accomplished,  and  holy  man ;  at  heart 
and  in  life  a  Christian.1  Reverend  Convers  Fran- 
cis, who  succeeded  Mr.  Ware  in  the  professorship 
at  the  Divinity  School,  spent  a  night  at  Emerson's 
house  soon  after  the  address.  In  a  passage  in  his 
diary,  which  I  am  allowed  to  insert,  he  says  :  — 

"  When  we  were  alone,  he  talked  of  his  discourse 
at  the  Divinity  School,  and  of  the  obloquy  it  had 
brought  upon  him.  He  is  perfectly  quiet  amidst 
the  storm.  To  my  objections  and  remarks  he  gave 
the  most  candid  replies.  Such  a  calm,  steady,  sim- 
ple soul,  always  looking  for  truth  and  living  in 
wisdom,  in  love  for  man  and  goodness,  I  have 
never  met.  He  is  not  a  philosopher,  he  is  a  seer. 
If  you  see  truth  as  he  does,  you  will  recognize  him 

1  Christian  Examiner,  November,  1838,  p.  266 ;  Christian  Reg- 
ister, September  29. 


338  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON, 

for  a  gifted  teacher ;  if  not,  there  is  little  or  noth- 
ing to  be  said.  But  do  not  brand  him  with  the 
names  of  visionary,  or  fanatic,  or  pretender ;  he  is 
no  such  thing ;  he  is  a  true,  godf ul  man,  though 
in  his  love  for  the  ideal  he  disregards  too  much 
the  actual." 

This  would  be  the  feeling  of  most  persons  who 
took  any  interest  in  the  matter,  outside  the  circle 
of  those  who,  from  their  position,  felt  themselves 
bound  to  defend  Unitarianism  against  the  charge 
of  unscriptural  teaching,  and  therefore  to  warn  all 
and  sundry  against  confounding  the  Unitarian  be- 
lief with  the  unauthorized  opinions  which  might 
sometimes  be  heard  from  Unitarian  pulpits. 

Emerson's  friend  Henry  Ware  (le  bon  Henri, 
he  somewhere  calls  him)  was  in  this  position,  and 
found  himself  perplexed  between  his  respect  and 
love  for  Emerson  and  an  acute  sense  of  duty,  re- 
quiring him  to  denounce  the  errors  into  which 
Emerson  had  fallen.  The  doctrine  that  "  the  soul 
knows  no  persons  "  seemed  to  him  to  deserve  the 
charge  of  atheism  ;  and  he  freed  his  soul  in  a  ser- 
mon to  the  divinity  students,  delivered  and  printed 
shortly  after  the  appearance  of  Emerson's  address. 
He  sent  a  copy  of  the  sermon  to  Emerson,  with  a 
letter  saying  that  it  had  been  regarded  as  contro- 
verting some  of  his  positions,  and  that  it  was  in- 
deed written  partly  with  that  view.  But  he  was 
anxious  to  have  it  understood  that  he  was  not 


RELIGION.  339 

attacking  them  as  Emerson's  ;  not  being  perfectly 
aware  of  the  precise  nature  of  his  opinions,  or  of 
the  arguments  by  which  they  might  be  justified  to 
his  mind. 

Emerson  replied  in  a  letter  which  has  often  been 
quoted,  as  it  deserves  to  be,  for  the  entire  serenity 
of  temper  it  displays,  but  also  as  a  confession  that 
he  was  incapable  of  reasoning.  There  is  no  one, 
he  says,  less  willing  or  less  able  to  be  polemic.  "  I 
could  not  possibly  give  you  one  of  the  '  arguments ' 
you  cruelly  hint  at,  on  which  any  doctrine  of  mine 
stands  ;  for  I  do  not  know  what  arguments  mean 
in  reference  to  any  expression  of  thought."  1  But 
there  is  danger  of  misunderstanding  here.  Emer- 
son was  no  doubt  always  disinclined  to  argument, 
but  upon  this  occasion  argument  would  have  been 
out  of  place.  He  was  trying  to  rouse  his  contem- 
poraries to  a  livelier  sense  of  the  facts  of  religion, 
and  this  could  never  be  done  by  argument.  A  man 
who  is  conscious  always  of  standing  in  the  presence 
of  God  may  proceed  from  this  experience  to  infer- 
ences concerning  the  nature  of  the  being  it  reveals, 
and  may  support  his  conclusions  by  argument ; 
that  is,  he  may  theologize.  But  no  theological  ar- 
guments will  ever  prove  the  being  of  God  to  an 
unreligious  man,  any  more  than  scientific  argu- 
ments about  light  will  prove  to  a  blind  man  the 
reality  of  colors.  He  has  no  means  of  verifying 

1  See  the  correspondence  in  Appendix  B. 


340  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

the  data  upon  which  the  arguments  rest ;  he  may 
admit  them  or  not,  but  they  are  to  him  mere  theo- 
retical assumptions.  Mr.  Ware's  argument  is  that 
the  attributes  we  apply  to  God,  —  his  righteousness 
and  loving-kindness,  —  unless  they  belong  to  a  per- 
son, are  mere  abstractions,  empty  names.  Emer- 
son, had  he  been  a  polemic,  might  have  replied 
that  they  were  no  abstractions  to  him  ;  and  that  if 
these  qualities  constitute  a  nature  essentially  unlike 
ours,  if  the  righteousness  and  the  loving-kindness 
of  God  are  different  in  kind  from  the  human  vir- 
tues to  which  we  give  these  names,  then  the  God 
asserted  by  his  friend  was  something  less  than  an 
abstraction ;  he  was  a  nonentity,  a  being  charac- 
terized by  inconceivable  predicates.  If  they  are 
the  same,  then  the  doctrine  that  the  soul  knows  no 
persons  need  only  mean  that  our  knowledge  of 
these  divine  attributes  does  not  warrant  us  in  as- 
cribing to  God  the  limitations  of  time  and  place 
which  belong  to  them  in  human  beings. 

Had  the  two  men  thought  out  their  theology,  I 
am  not  sure  that  it  would  have  been  very  different. 
Emerson  might,  "  in  his  metaphysics,"  l  deny  per- 
sonality to  God ;  but  he  never  gave  much  attention 
to  his  metaphysics,  and  what  he  means  by  person- 
ality seems  to  be  nothing  more  than  limitation  to 
an  individual.  A  few  months  before  the  address, 
he  was  visited  by  some  of  the  divinity  students, 

1  Collected  Writings,  ii.  58. 


RELIGION.  341 

who  questioned  him  upon  this  point.  He  writes  in 
his  diary :  — 

"March,  1838.  What  shall  I  answer  to  these 
friendly  youths  who  ask  of  me  an  account  of  the- 
ism, and  think  the  views  I  have  expressed  of  the 
impersonality  of  God  desolating  and  ghastly?  I 
say  that  I  cannot  find,  when  I  explore  my  own 
consciousness,  any  truth  in  saying  that  God  is  a 
person,  but  the  reverse.  I  feel  that  there  is  some 
profanation  in  saying  he  is  personal.  To  represent 
him  as  an  individual  is  to  shut  him  out  of  my  con- 
sciousness. He  is  then  but  a  great  man,  such  as 
the  crowd  worships.  The  natural  motions  of  the 
soul  are  so  much  better  than  the  voluntary  ones 
that  you  will  never  do  yourself  justice  in  dispute. 
The  thought  is  not  then  taken  hold  of  '  by  the 
right  handle  ; '  does  not  show  itself  proportioned 
and  in  its  true  bearings.  It  bears  extorted,  hoarse, 
and  half  witness.  I  have  been  led,  yesterday,  into 
a  rambling  exculpatory  talk  on  theism.  I  say  that 
here  we  feel  at  once  that  we  have  no  language ; 
that  words  are  only  auxiliary  and  not  adequate, 
are  suggestions  and  not  copies  of  our  cogitation.  I 
deny  personality  to  God  because  it  is  too  little,  not 
too  much.  Life,  personal  life,  is  faint  and  cold  to 
the  energy  of  God.  For  Reason  and  Love  and 
Beauty,  or  that  which  is  all  these,  —  it  is  the  life 
of  life,  the  reason  of  reason,  the  love  of  love." 

If  the  mark  of  personality  be  self-consciousness, 
he  did  not  deny  this  to  the  Supreme  Being. 


342  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  There  is  an  important  equivoque  in  our  use  of 
the  word  unconscious,  —  a  word  which  is  much 
played  upon  in  the  psychology  of  the  present  day. 
We  say  that  our  virtue  and  genius  are  uncon- 
scious ;  that  they  are  the  influx  of  God,  and  the 
like.  The  objector  replies  that  to  represent  the 
Divine  Being  as  an  unconscious  somewhat  is  ab- 
horrent, etc.  But  the  unconsciousness  we  spoke  of 
was  merely  relative  to  us.  We  speak,  we  act,  from 
we  know  not  what  higher  principle  ;  and  we  de- 
scribe its  circumambient  quality  by  confessing  the 
subjection  of  our  perceptions  to  it ;  we  cannot  over- 
top, oversee  it,  —  not  see  at  all  its  channel  into  us. 
But,  in  saying  this,  we  predicate  nothing  of  its 
consciousness  or  unconsciousness  in  relation  to  it- 
self. We  see  at  once  that  we  have  no  language 
subtle  enough  for  distinctions  in  that  inaccessible 
region.  That  air  is  too  rare  for  the  wings  of 
words.  We  cannot  say  God  is  self-conscious  or 
not  self-conscious,  for  the  moment  we  cast  our  eye 
on  that  dread  nature  it  soars  infinitely  out  of  all 
definition  and  dazzles  all  inquest." 

"  The  human  mind  seems  a  lens  formed  to  con- 
centrate the  rays  of  the  divine  laws  to  a  focus 
which  shall  be  the  personality  of  God.  But  that 
focus  falls  so  far  into  the  infinite  that  the  form  or 
person  of  God  is  not  within  the  ken  of  the  mind. 
Yet  must  that  ever  be  the  effort  of  a  good  mind, 
because  the  avowal  of  our  sincere  doubts  leaves  us 


RELIGION.  343 

in  a  less  favorable  mood  for  action ;  and  the  state- 
ment of  our  best  thoughts,  or  those  of  our  convic- 
tions that  make  most  for  theism,  induces  new  cour- 
age and  force."  (Journal,  1835.) 

Emerson's  denial  of  God's  personality  was  only 
an  affirmation  of  the  infinitude  of  his  nature,  tran- 
scending all  the  efforts  of  human  imagination  and 
understanding  to  compass  and  express  it.  But, 
without  venturing  further  into  these  troubled  wa- 
ters, so  much,  at  least,  is  clear,  that  the  Liberals 
were  in  no  position  to  warn  the  public  against  Em- 
erson's speculations  until  they  had  put  their  own 
into  a  more  seaworthy  condition.  Admitting  that 
there  was  danger  in  detaching  the  religious  ideas 
from  the  forms  with  which  they  had  been  invested, 
the  danger  was  incurred  when  it  was  denied  that 
Christ  was  God ;  for  it  was  only  in  the  person  of 
Christ  that  God  had  been  supposed  to  reveal  him- 
self immediately  to  the  Christian  consciousness. 
The  whole  tradition  stood  upon  that  fact ;  if  it  was 
denied,  the  historical  evidences  became  irrelevant. 

Emerson  did  not  think  very  highly  of  his  ad- 
dress ;  he  had  not  said  what  he  most  wished  to  say, 
but  he  was  surprised  to  find  his  intention  so  far 
mistaken  as  to  leave  many  of  his  Unitarian  breth- 
ren to  suppose  that  he  was  trying  to  belittle  the 
character  of  Jesus.  Far  from  this,  he  was  trying 
to  place  the  reverence  for  Jesus  upon  its  true 
ground,  out  of  reach  of  the  reaction  that  was  sure 


844  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

to  set  in  when  the  claim  to  an  exclusive  revelation 
should  lose  its  force. 

"  Another  wood-thought  was  that  since  the  par- 
rot world  will  be  swift  to  renounce  the  name  of 
Christ,  as  amends  to  its  pride  for  having  raised  it 
so  high,  it  behooves  the  lover  of  God  to  love  that 
lover  of  God."  (Journal,  July,  1838.) 

Miss  Elizabeth  Peabody,  in  her  reminiscences  of 
Dr.  Channing,1  says  that  a  passage  to  this  effect 
was  omitted,  for  want  of  time,  in.,  the  reading  of 
the  address,  and  that  she  urged  Mr.  Emerson  to  re- 
store it  in  the  printing.  But  he,  on  reflection,  pre- 
ferred to  let  the  paper  stand  as  it  was  read.  His 
meaning  was  sufficiently  plain ;  if  not,  he  would 
not  explain  it  by  what  might  seem  an  afterthought. 

For  the  moment  it  looked  as  if  the  effect  of  the 
discourse  might  be  to  exclude  him  from  the  ly- 
ceum  as  well  as  the  church. 

"  I  mean  [he  writes  to  his  brother  William]  to 
lecture  again  in  Boston  the  coming  winter;  and 
perhaps  the  people,  scared  by  the  newspapers,  will 
not  come  and  pay  me  for  my  paper  and  pens.  I 
design  to  give  away  a  large  number  of  tickets,  that 
I  may  not  have  labored  wholly  in  vain." 

(Journal.)  "  August  31.  Yesterday  at  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  anniversary.  Steady,  steady.  I  am 
convinced  that  if  a  man  will  be  a  true  scholar  he 

1  Reminiscences  of  Rev.  William  Ellery  Channing,  D.  D.  By 
Elizabeth  Palmer  Peabody.  Boston,  1880:  p.  373. 


RELIGION.  345 

shall  have  perfect  freedom.  The  young  people  and 
the  mature  hint  at  odium  and  the  aversion  of  faces, 
to  be  presently  encountered  in  society.  I  say  no ; 
I  fear  it  not.  For,  if  it  be  true  that  he  is  merely 
an  observer,  a  dispassionate  reporter,  no  partisan, 
his  position  is  one  of  perfect  immunity.  To  him 
no  disgusts  can  attach;  he  is  invulnerable.  The 
vulgar  think  he  would  found  a  sect  and  be  installed 
and  made  much  of.  He  knows  better,  and  much 
prefers  his  melons  and  his  woods.  Society  has  no 
bribe  for  me ;  neither  in  politics,  nor  church,  nor 
college,  nor  city.  My  resources  are  far  from  ex- 
hausted. If  they  will  not  hear  me  lecture,  I  shall 
have  leisure  for  my  book,  which  wants  me.  Be- 
sides, it  is  a  universal  maxim,  worthy  of  all  accep- 
tation, that  a  man  may  have  that  allowance  which 
he  takes.  Take  the  place  and  the  attitude  to  which 
you  see  your  unquestionable  right,  and  all  men  ac- 
quiesce. Who  are  these  murmurers,  these  haters, 
these  revilers  ?  Men  of  no  knowledge,  and  there- 
fore no  stability.  The  scholar,  on  the  contrary,  is 
sure  of  his  point,  is  fast-rooted,  and  can  surely  pre- 
dict the  hour  when  all  this  roaring  multitude  shall 
roar  for  him.  Analyze  the  chiding  opposition,  and 
it  is  made  up  of  such  timidities,  uncertainties,  and 
no-opinions  that  it  is  not  worth  dispersing. 

"  One  often  sees  in  the  embittered  acuteness  of 
critics,  snuffing  heresy  from  afar,  their  own  unbe- 
lief ;  and  that  they  pour  forth  on  the  innocent  pro- 


346  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

mulgator  of  new  doctrine  their  anger  at  that  which 
they  vainly  resist  in  their  own  bosom." 

The  episode  was  disagreeable  to  him  chiefly  be- 
cause it  made  him  think  about  himself  :  — 

"  What  is  fit  to  engage  me,  and  so  engage  others, 
permanently,  is  what  has  put  off  its  weeds  of  time 
and  place  and  personal  relation.  Therefore  all  that 
befalls  me  in  the  way  of  criticism  and  extreme 
blame  or  praise,  drawing  me  out  of  equilibrium, 
putting  me  for  a  time  in  false  position  to  people, 
and  disallowing  the  spontaneous  sentiments,  wastes 
my  time,  bereaves  me  of  thought,  and  shuts  me  up 
within  poor,  personal  considerations.  Therefore  I 
hate  to  be  conspicuous  for  blame  or  praise.  My 
prayer  is  that  I  may  never  be  deprived  of  a  fact, 
but  be  always  so  rich  in  objects  of  study  as  never  to 
feel  this  impoverishment  of  remembering  myself." 

TO   WILLIAM    EMERSON. 

September  2,  1838. 

The  Cambridge  address  has  given  plentiful  of- 
fence, and  will,  until  nine  days  are  out.  The  Di- 
vinity College  has  of  course  a  right  to  a  strong 
statement,  disclaiming  all  acceptance  of  its  doc- 
trine, and  expressing  what  degree  of  abhorrence  it 
will ;  because  otherwise  the  title-page  would  seem 
to  make  the  college  endorser  of  the  heresy.  The 
speech  will  serve,  as  some  of  the  divisions  in  Con- 
gressional debates,  to  ascertain  how  men  do  think 
on  a  great  question. 


RELIGION.  347 

(Journal.)  "  Let  me  never  fall  into  the  vulgar 
mistake  of  dreaming  that  I  am  persecuted  whenever 
I  am  contradicted.  No  man,  I  think,  had  ever  a 
greater  well-being  with  a  less  desert  than  I.  I 
can  very  well  afford  to  be  accounted  bad  or  foolish 
by  a  few  dozen  or  a  few  hundred  persons,  —  I  who 
see  myself  greeted  by  the  good  expectation  of  so 
many  friends,  far  beyond  any  power  of  thought  or 
communication  of  thought  residing  in  me.  Besides, 
I  own  I  am  often  inclined  to  take  part  with  those 
who  say  I  am  bad  or  foolish.  I  know  too  well  my 
own  dark  spots.  Not  having  myself  attained,  not 
having  satisfied  myself,  far  from  a  holy  obedience, 
how  can  I  expect  to  satisfy  others,  to  command 
their  love  ?  A  few  sour  faces,  a  few  biting  para- 
graphs, are  but  a  cheap  expiation  for  all  these  short- 
comings of  mine." 

He  went  back  to  his  study,  not  much  disturbed 
by  the  sour  faces,  but  somewhat  sore  from  the  treat- 
ment he  had  received,  and  more  annoyed,  perhaps, 
at  finding  himself  in  a  position  of  notoriety,  as  the 
supposed  champion  of  the  "  new  views." 


CHAPTEE  X. 

CONCORD.  —  VISITORS   AND  FRIENDS. 

THE  Concord  study  had  already  begun  to  be  a 
mark  for  wanderers  upon  the  high  seas  of  religion 
and  sociology,  who  touched  there  in  great  variety 
to  take  counsel  or  to  compare  latitudes.  Among 
these  came,  in  the  autumn  after  the  Divinity  Hall 
speech,  a  visitor  of  an  uncommon  stamp :  a  reli- 
gious mystic,  the  most  simple  and  modest  of  men, 
but  now  inflamed  by  a  sudden  enthusiasm,  which 
carried  him  beyond  all  the  bounds  of  his  natural 
disposition,  and  brought  him  to  Emerson,  not  so 
much  to  compare  notes  or  take  counsel  as  to  give 
it ;  or  at  least  to  warn  Emerson  against  the  pride 
of  the  intellect,  and  to  exhort  him  to  decease  from 
a  life  of  self-direction,  and  be  born  again  to  the 
will-less  life  of  the  spirit.  This  was  Jones  Very,  a 
Salem  youth,  who,  upon  the  slenderest  means,  had 
made  his  way  to  Harvard  College,  and,  on  grad- 
uating with  distinction  in  1836,  had  received  the 
appointment  of  tutor  in  Greek  to  the  freshman 
class.  I  was  a  member  of  that  class,  and  I  well  re- 
member the  tall,  angular  figure  and  the  solemn^  fer- 
vent face  that  made  one  turn  and  look  when  he 


CONCORD.  349 

passed.  But  what  was  still  more  remarkable  and 
even  singular  was  the  personal  interest  he  took  in 
each  one  of  us ;  and  not  so  much  in  our  proficiency 
in  the  college  tasks  (though  he  did  not  neglect 
that)  as  in  the  salvation  of  our  souls.  This  was 
ground  sufficient  to  the  college  authorities  for  con- 
cluding that  he  was  mad,  and  must  be  removed  to 
a  lunatic  hospital,  or  at  any  rate  must  leave  his 
post ;  which  he  did  without  demur  and  even  placed 
himself  obediently  under  Dr.  Bell's  care  at  Som- 
erville ;  though  his  madness  did  not,  as  far  as  I 
recollect,  interfere  with  the  discharge  of  his  college 
duties,  —  indeed,  consisted,  I  think,  chiefly  in  the 
assumption  that  the  precepts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  literally  true.  There  was,  however,  no 
doubt,  an  abnormal  acceleration  in  him  of  the 
whole  mental  machinery  ;  a  psychical  intoxication, 
which,  for  a  time,  intensified  his  religious  impres- 
sions, and  gave  him,  Emerson  says,  an  extraordi- 
nary discernment  in  spiritual  things :  — 

"  What  he  said,  held,  was  not  personal  to  him ; 
was  no  more  disputable  than  the  shining  of  yonder 
sun  and  the  blowing  of  this  south  wind."  Emer- 
son writes  to  Miss  Margaret  Fuller :  — 

CONCOED,  November  9,  1838. 

Very  has  been  here  lately,  and  stayed  a  few 
days ;  confounding  us  all  with  the  question  whether 
he  was  insane.  At  first  sight  and  speech  you  would 


350  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

certainly  pronounce  him  so.  Talk  with  him  a  few 
hours,  and  you  will  think  all  insane  but  he.  Mono- 
mania or  monosania,  he  is  a  very  remarkable  per- 
son ;  and  though  his  mind  is  not  in  a  natural  and 
probably  not  in  a  permanent  state,  he  is  a  treasure 
of  a  companion,  and  I  had  with  him  most  memo- 
rable conversations. 

And  in  his  journal :  "  He  said  to  me :  '  I  always 
felt,  when  I  heard  you  speak  or  read  your  writings, 
that  you  saw  the  truth  better  than  others ;  yet  I 
felt  that  your  spirit  was  not  quite  right.  It  was  as 
if  a  vein  of  colder  air  blew  across  me.'  He  thinks 
me  covetous  in  my  hold  of  truth,  of  seeing  truth 
separate,  and  of  receiving  or  taking  it,  instead  of 
merely  obeying.  He  seemed  to  expect  of  me  — 
once  especially  in  Walden  wood  —  a  full  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  mission,  and  a  participation  of  the 
same.  Seeing  this,  I  asked  him  if  he  did  not  see 
that  my  thoughts  and  my  position  were  constitu- 
tional; that  it  would  be  false  and  impossible  for 
me  to  say  his  things  or  try  to  occupy  his  ground,  as 
for  him  to  usurp  mine.  After  some  frank  and  full 
explanation  he  conceded  this.  When  I  met  him 
afterwards,  one  evening  at  my  lecture  in  Boston,  I 
invited  him  to  go  home  to  Mr.  Abel  Adams's  with 
me,  and  sleep,  which  he  did.  Early  next  day  in 
the  gray  dawn  he  came  into  my  room  and  talked 
while  I  dressed.  He  said :  '  When  I  was  in  Con- 


CONCORD.  351 

cord  I  tried  to  say  you  were  also  right ;  but  the 
spirit  said  you  were  not  right.  It  is  as  if  I  should 
say,  It  is  not  morning  ;  but  the  morning  says,  It  is 
the  morning.' " 

While  he  was  at  the  asylum,  Very  wrote  or 
finished  an  essay  on  Epic  Poetry  and  two  papers 
on  Shakspeare,  which  he  brought  to  Emerson  to- 
gether with  some  manuscript  poems.  The  aim  of 
the  Shakspeare  essays  was  to  show  that  Shak- 
speare's  ruling  impulse  was  the  joy  of  mere  exist- 
ence ;  he  delighted  to  identify  himself  with  every 
mode  of  life,  and  to  express  every  kind  and  shade 
of  activity ;  sharing  the  universal  stir  of  nature, 
the  unconscious  operation  of  the  divine  will,  with- 
out more  thought  of  individual  choice  or  volition 
than  a  tree,  or  the  wind  that  whispers  in  its 
branches.  He  is  the  type  of  the  natural  or  spon- 
taneous man,  as  yet  unfallen  from  the  state  of  in- 
nocence into  the  consciousness  of  personality.  In 
Hamlet  the  key-note  is  horror  at  the  thought  that 
the  pleasure  of  existing  must  come  to  an  end.  In 
view  of  this,  all  enterprises,  of  whatever  pith  and 
moment,  lose  the  name  of  action;  they  are  not 
worth  while.  It  is  the  longing  of  the  natural  man 
for  the  assurance  of  eternal  existence.  To  us 
Hamlet  seems  mad,  because  our  ruling  passion  is 
not  the  sense  of  being,  of  sharing  the  universal 
existence,  but  the  desire  to  fence  off  some  corner  of 
the  universe  for  ourselves ;  to  be  rich,  powerful, 


352  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

learned,  intellectual.  But  it  is  only  in  resigning 
all  this  that  we  can  find  our  true  happiness.  We 
must  do,  consciously  and  from  a  sense  of  duty, 
what  Shakspeare  did  unconsciously,  from  the 
prompting  of  genius  ;  yield  ourselves  to  the  opera- 
tions of  the  divine  will.  We  must  be  born  again  ; 
or  rather,  we  must  be  born,  for  as  concerns  our 
true  life  we  are  yet  unborn. 

These  were  Emerson's  own  thoughts,  and  we 
might  expect  that  when  they  came  to  him  clothed 
in  flesh  and  blood,  they  would  meet  a  ready  wel- 
come and  response.  Yet  Very,  coming  to  Concord 
on  his  "  mission  to  the  unborn,"  went  away  baffled 
and  disappointed,  though  he  did  not  lose  his  regard 
for  Emerson,  always  asked  after  him,  and  used  to 
send  him  the  little  poems  he  published  from  time 
to  time  in  the  Salem  newspapers.  At  this  time  he 
left  with  him  the  manuscripts  he  had  brought ; 
which  Emerson  afterwards  published.1 

Very  went  back  to  his  native  town,  where  he 
remained  until  his  death  in  1880,  preaching  from 
time  to  time,  but  never  settled  as  a  minister.  The 

1  Essays  and  Poems,  by  Jones  Very.  Boston,  1839.  Re- 
printed, without  the  essays,  but  with  a  large  additional  number 
of  poems  and  an  appreciative  note  by  way  of  memoir,  by  Very's 
townsman,  Mr.  William  P.  Andrews  (Boston,  1883)  ;  and  again, 
with  the  essays  and  a  still  larger  addition  to  the  poems,  and  with 
a  portrait  of  Very,  under  the  care  of  Dr.  J.  F.  Clarke  and  Dr.  C. 
A.  Bartol  (Boston,  1886). 


CONCORD.  353 

mental  exaltation  gradually  subsided,  leaving  on 
his  kindly,  careworn  face,  as  one  met  him  in  the 
Salem  streets,  the  old  look  of  rapt  contemplation, 
but  now  dimmed  and  troubled  as  if  by  the  burden  of 
a  message  he  had  found  himself  unable  to  deliver. 

Very's  disappointment  at  finding  Emerson  seem- 
ingly cold  to  thoughts  which  he  himself  suggested 
was  probably  not  an  uncommon  experience ;  Em- 
erson's later  friend,  Mr.  Henry  James  (the  elder), 
found  the  same  thing  when  he  tried  to  take  counsel 
with  him  on  the  profound  truths  that  are  wrapped 
up  in  the  commonplaces  of  the  Calvinistic  theology, 
and  upon  the  means  of  giving  them  effect  upon 
society.  Emerson  accepted  readily  enough  all  that 
he  said,  so  far  as  it  was  affirmative  and  hopeful, 
and  he  enjoyed  the  sparkling  humor  of  Mr.  James's 
attacks  upon  the  social  conventions ;  but  he  could 
not  take  them  very  seriously.  Mr.  James's  lively 
account  of  his  pursuit  of  Emerson,  even  to  his  bed- 
chamber, in  the  unavailing  effort  to  bring  him  to 
book  on  the  topic  of  man's  regeneration,  is  a  good 
illustration  of  Emerson's  attitude  of  mind,  and  how 
it  might  puzzle  eager  persons  who  were  enticed 
into  bringing  their  problems  to  him  by  the  invit- 
ing, almost  reverential  way  in  which  he  received 
them  :  — 

"  On  the  whole,  I  may  say  that  at  first  I  was 
greatly  disappointed  in  him,  because  his  intellect 
never  kept  the  promise  which  his  lovely  face  and 


354  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

manners  held  out  to  me.  He  was  to  my  senses  a 
literal  divine  presence  in  the  house  with  me ;  and 
we  cannot  recognize  literal  divine  presences  in  our 
houses  without  feeling  sure  that  they  will  be  able 
to  say  something  of  critical  importance  to  one's  in- 
tellect. It  turned  out  that  any  average  old  dame  in 
a  horse-car  would  have  satisfied  my  intellectual  ra- 
pacity just  as  well  as  Emerson,  .  .  .  and  though  his 
immense  personal  fascination  always  kept  up,  he 
at  once  lost  all  intellectual  prestige  to  my  regard.  I 
even  thought  that  I  had  never  seen  a  man  more  pro- 
foundly devoid  of  spiritual  understanding.  ...  In 
his  books  or  public  capacity  he  was  constantly  elec- 
trifying you  by  sayings  full  of  divine  inspiration.  In 
his  talk  or  private  capacity  he  was  one  of  the  least 
remunerative  men  I  ever  encountered.  No  man 
could  look  at  him  speaking  (or  when  he  was  silent 
either,  for  that  matter)  without  having  a  vision  of 
the  divinest  beauty.  But  when  you  went  to  him 
to  hold  discourse  about  the  wondrous  phenomenon, 
you  found  him  absolutely  destitute  of  reflective 
power." l 

Mr.  James's  explanation  is  that  Emerson  was 
unconscious  of  any  inward  or  spiritual  difference 
between  good  and  evil.  "  He  was  all  his  days  an 
arch-traitor  to  our  existing  civilized  regimen,  inas- 
much as  he  unconsciously  managed  to  set  aside  its 
fundamental  principle,  in  doing  without  conscience. 
1  Literary  Remains,  p.  297. 


CONCORD.  355 

.  .  .  He  had  no  conscience,  in  fact,  and  lived  by 
perception,  which  is  an  altogether  lower  or  less 
spiritual  faculty."  And  Mr.  John  Morley,  in  his  ad- 
mirably appreciative  essay  on  Emerson,  has  a  criti- 
cism which  perhaps  comes  to  the  same  thing :  — 

"  Emerson  has  little  to  say  of  that  horrid  bur- 
den and  impediment  on  the  soul,  which  the  churches 
call  Sin,  and  which,  by  whatever  name  we  call  it, 
is  a  very  real  catastrophe  in  the  moral  nature  of 
man.  He  had  no  eye,  like  Dante's,  for  the  vile- 
ness,  the  cruelty,  the  utter  despicableness  to  which 
humanity  may  be  moulded.  If  he  saw  them  at  all, 
it  was  through  the  softening  and  illusive  medium 
of  generalized  phrases.  .  .  .  The  courses  of  na- 
ture and  the  prodigious  injustices  of  man  in 
society  affect  him  with  neither  horror  nor  awe. 
He  will  see  no  monster  if  he  can  help  it.  For  the 
fatal  Nemesis  or  terrible  Erinnyes,  daughters  of 
Erebus  and  Night,  Emerson  substitutes  a  fair- 
weather  abstraction  named  Compensation."  l 

There  is  some  foundation,  no  doubt,  for  this  feel- 
ing about  Emerson,  but  I  think  a  truer  account  of 
his  disinclination  to  look  on  the  seamy  side  of  na- 
ture or  of  man  is  to  be  found  in  the  sentence  which 
Mr.  Morley  quotes  from  the  essay  on  Fate :  "  It 
is  wholesome  to  man  to  look  not  at  Fate,  but  the 
other  way;  the  practical  view  is  the  other."2  And 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    An  Essay.     New  York,  1884  :  p.  50. 
3  Collected  Writings,  vi.  28,  34. 


356  RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON. 

this  from  the  essay  on  the  Over  Soul :  "  "We  grant 
that  human  life  is  mean,  but  how  did  we  find  out 
that  it  was  mean  ?  "  1  The  profitable  view  is  that 
it  is  something  we  can  help  to  make  better.  It 
is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  much  -on  shortcom- 
ings, on  human  miseries  or  faults,  but  only  to  use 
them  as  the  occasions  for  improvement.  "  We  can 
afford  to  allow  the  limitation  if  we  know  it  is  the 
meter  of  the  growing  man."  Hence  his  dislike  of 
preaching  and  of  fault-finding.  He  would  listen, 
as  Mr.  James  says,  "  with  earnest  respect  and 
sympathy  whenever  you  plead  for  society  as  the 
redeemed  form  of  our  nature,"  but  if  you  attacked 
a  particular  institution,  the  church,  for  instance, 
as  false  or  inadequate,  he  would  appear  to  be  "  en- 
tirely ignorant  of  its  existence ; "  he  could  not,  in 
fact,  attend  to  what  you  said.  If  you  did  not  like 
it,  your  business  was  to  ignore  it  and  to  put  some- 
thing better  in  its  place.  In  his  reply  to  a  young 
minister  who  had  been  impressed  by  the  exhorta- 
tions of  the  Divinity  Hall  address,  and  was  some- 
what in  doubt  how  to  give  them  practical  applica- 
tion, Emerson  says :  — 

"  We  talk  of  the  community  and  of  the  church, 
but  what  are  these  but  what  we  let  them  be  ?  When 
we  are  faithful  we  know  them  not :  absorbed  with 
our  own  thought,  sure  of  our  duties,  we  cumber 
ourselves  never  with  the  church ;  in  fact,  all  that 

1  Collected  Writings,  ii.  251. 


CONCORD.  357 

is  alive  in  the  church  is  in  us.  As  soon  as  we  step 
aside  a  little  and  consult  history  and  facts,  straight- 
way society  grows  a  great  matter  and  the  soul  a 
small  circumstance." 

He  was  ready  and  eager  for  every  one's  ideas 
about  progress  and  reform,  but  his  chief  interest 
was  in  their  tendency :  how  they  were  to  be  real- 
ized was  the  affair  of  the  individual.  If  you  urged 
them  upon  him,  he  would  receive  your  remarks  in 
gracious  silence,  or  answer  at  cross-purposes,  or 
with  some  "  implacably  mild  "  agreement,  as  Mr. 
James  complains. 

I  should  have  supposed  that  some  such  experi- 
ences of  my  own  were  peculiar,  and  that  Emerson's 
earlier  and  closer  friends  were  more  successful  in 
drawing  him  into  discussion ;  but  if  Mr.  James 
failed,  I  can  hardly  believe  that  any  one  ever  really 
succeeded,  though  Emerson's  invariable  urbanity 
might  sometimes  conceal  the  failure. 

This  seeming  impassivity  and  want  of  response 
was  often  perplexing  to  those  who  came  to  him, 
and  even  to  himself.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
Margaret  Fuller's  disappointments  ;  even  Mr.  Al- 
cott,  of  all  men  the  least  exacting  of  response,  felt 
"  the  pains  to  be  impersonal  or  discrete  "  as  the 
one  subtraction  from  Emerson's  charm.1  Mr. 
James,  in  reply  to  my  request  to  be  allowed  to  read 

1  R.  W.  Emerson :  an  Estimate  of  his  Character  and  Genius, 
in  Prose  and  Verse.  By  A.  B.  Alcott.  Boston,  1882  :  p.  40. 


358  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

the  letters  from  him  which  I  found  among  Emer- 
son's papers,  says :  — 

"  I  cannot  flatter  myself  that  any  letter  I  ever 
wrote  to  Emerson  is  worth  your  reading.  If  you 
think  it  may  be,  pray  read  it  and  welcome.  Emerson 
always  kept  one  at  such  arm's-length,  tasting  him 
and  sipping  him  and  trying  him,  to  make  sure  that 
he  was  worthy  of  his  somewhat  prim  and  bloodless 
friendship,  that  it  was  fatiguing  to  write  him  let- 
ters. I  can't  recall  any  serious  letter  I  ever  sent 
him.  I  remember  well  what  maidenly  letters  I 
used  to  receive  from  him,  with  so  many  tentative 
charms  of  expression  in  them  that  if  he  had  been 
a  woman  one  would  have  delighted  in  compliment- 
ing hun ;  but,  as  it  was,  you  could  say  nothing 
about  them,  but  only  pocket  the  disappointment 
they  brought.  It  is  painful  to  recollect  now  the 
silly  hope  that  I  had,  along  the  early  days  of  our 
acquaintance,  that  if  I  went  on  listening  some- 
thing would  be  sure  to  drop  from  him  that  would 
show  me  an  infallible  way  out  of  this  perplexed 
world.  For  nothing  ever  came  but  epigrams ; 
sometimes  clever,  sometimes  not." 

This,  I  am  sure,  is  quite  unjust  to  Mr.  James's 
real  feeling  about  Emerson,  —  it  was  written  in 
illness  and  depression,  just  before  his  death;  in- 
deed, he  himself,  in  the  essay  from  which  I  have 
quoted,  says  that  Emerson's  relations  to  people 
were  governed  entirely  by  his  friendly  and  affec- 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  359 

tionate  feelings ;  and  he  illustrates  the  remark  by 
an  allusion  to  Emerson's  treatment  of  Wendell 
Phillips,  when  the  latter  "ventilated  his  not  un- 
timely wit"  in  aspersions  of  Emerson's  friend, 
Judge  Hoar.1  But  it  expresses  what  many  per- 
sons, led  by  Emerson's  ever  gracious  manner  and 
his  entire  and  unmistakable  hospitality  of  mind, 
may  have  felt  when  they  tried  to  make  him  take 
their  point  of  view.  Dr.  Holmes  says  of  him,2 
"  His  friends  were  all  who  knew  him ; "  and  it  is 
indeed  remarkable  how  the  personal  impression  of 
the  man  melted  all  opposition  and  even  indifference 
in  those  who  met  him.  Yet  he  found  himself  con- 
stantly thwarted,  not  merely  in  the  ordinary  inter- 
course of  society  but  in  his  friendships,  by  "  unsea- 
sonable epilepsies  of  wit  and  spirits."  There  were 
"fences,"  he  said,  between  him  and  some  of  his 
dearest  friends. 

(Journal,  1837.)  "  Is  it  not  pathetic  that  the 
action  of  men  on  men  is  so  partial?  We  never 
touch  but  at  points.  The  most  that  I  can  have  of 
my  fellow-man  or  be  to  him,  is  it  the  reading  of  his 
book,  or  the  hearing  of  his  project  in  conversation  ? 
I  approach  some  Carlyle,  with  desire  and  joy.  I 
am  led  on  from  month  to  month  with  an  expecta- 
tion of  some  total  embrace  and  oneness  with  a  no- 

1  Emerson  told  Dr.  Bartol  that  the  next  time  he  met  Mr.  Phil- 
lips he  refused  him  his  hand. 

2  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.    [Amer- 
ican Men  of  Letters.]     Boston,  1885 :  p.  367. 


860  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

ble  mind ;  and  learn  at  last  that  it  is  only  so  feeble 
and  remote  and  hiant  action  as  reading  a  Mira- 
beau  or  a  Diderot  paper.  This  is  all  that  can  be 
looked  for;  more  we  shall  not  be  to  each  other. 
Balked  soul !  It  is  not  that  the  sea  and  poverty 
and  pursuit  separate  us.  Here  is  Alcott  by  my 
door,  —  yet  is  the  union  more  profound  ?  No ;  the 
sea,  vocation,  poverty,  are  seeming  fences,  but  man 
is  insular  and  cannot  be  touched.  Every  man  is 
an  infinitely  repellent  orb,  and  holds  his  individual 
being  on  that  condition." 

"  Some  people  [he  writes  in  his  journal  in  1839] 
are  born  public  souls,  and  live  with  all  their  doors 
open  to  the  street.  Close  beside  them  we  find  in 
contrast  the  lonely  man,  with  all  his  doors  shut, 
reticent,  thoughtful,  shrinking  from  crowds,  afraid 
to  take  hold  of  hands ;  thankful  for  the  existence 
of  the  other,  but  incapable  of  such  performance, 
wondering  at  its  possibility ;  full  of  thoughts,  but 
paralyzed  and  silenced  instantly  by  these  boister- 
ous masters  ;  and,  though  loving  his  race,  discover- 
ing at  last  that  he  has  no  proper  sympathy  with 
persons,  but  only  with  their  genius  and  aims.  He 
is  solitary  because  he  has  society  in  his  thought, 
and,  when  people  come  in,  they  drive  away  his 
society  and  isolate  him.  We  would  all  be  public 
men,  if  we  could  afford  it ;  I  am  wholly  private  ; 
such  is  the  poverty  of  my  constitution.  Heaven 
'betrayed  me  to  a  book,  and  wrapped  me  in  a 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  361 

gown.'  I  have  no  social  talent,  no  will,  and  a 
steady  appetite  for  insights  in  any  or  all  directions, 
to  balance  my  manifold  imbecilities. 

"  S.  M.  F.  [Fuller]  writes  me  that  she  waits  for 
the  lectures ;  seeing  well  after  much  intercourse 
that  the  best  of  me  is  there.  She  says  very  truly, 
and  I  thought  it  a  good  remark  which  somebody 
repeated  here  from  S.  S.,  that  I  '  always  seemed  to 
be  on  stilts.'  It  is  even  so.  Most  of  the  persons 
whom  I  see  in  my  own  house  I  see  across  a  gulf. 
I  cannot  go  to  them  nor  they  come  to  me.  Noth- 
ing can  exceed  the  frigidity  and  labor  of  my  speech 
with  such.  You  might  turn  a  yoke  of  oxen  be- 
tween every  pair  of  words  ;  and  the  behavior  is  as 
awkward  and  proud.  I  see  the  ludicrousness  of 
the  plight  as  well  as  they.  But  never  having  found 
any  remedy,  I  am  very  patient  of  this  folly  or 
shame ;  patient  of  my  churl's  mask,  in  the  belief 
that  this  privation  has  certain  rich  compensations. 
And  yet,  in  one  who  sets  his  mark  so  high,  who 
presumes  so  vast  an  elevation  as  the  birthright  of 
man,  is  it  not  a  little  sad  to  be  a  mere  mill  or 
pump,  yielding  one  wholesome  product  in  one  par- 
ticular mode,  but  as  impertinent  and  worthless  in 
any  other  place  or  purpose  as  a  pump  or  a  coffee- 
mill  would  be  in  a  parlor  ?  " 

In  his  own  domestic  circle  Emerson  was  affec- 
tionate and  unreserved,  even  playful ;  but  beyond 
that  he  had  few  intimates,  hardly  any  except  those 


362  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

who  had  been  the  companions  of  his  childhood.  To 
his  children,  and  sometimes  to  young  persons  not 
of  his  own  family,  he  could  unbosom  himself ;  and 
there  are  men  who  were-  then  boys  who  remember 
him  as  full  of  personal  solicitude  and  encourage- 
ment, even  of  tenderness,  towards  them.  "  My 
special  parish  [he  once  said]  is  young  men  seeking 
their  way."  With  older  people  it  fared  best  when, 
like  Hawthorne,  they  were  satisfied  to  stand  at  a 
distance,  without  coming  to  any  close  questioning 
upon  the  riddle  of  the  universe  ;  or  when  their 
genius  and  aims  were  large  and  indefinite,  never 
descending  to  particular  problems. 

"  When  we  come  to  speak  with  those  who  most 
fully  accord  in  life  and  doctrine  with  ourselves, 
lo !  what  mountains  high  and  rivers  wide.  How 
still  the  word  is  to  seek  which  can,  like  a  ferry- 
man, transport  either  into  the  point  of  view  of  the 
other." 

"  The  porcupine  impossibility  of  contact  with 
men"  in  one"  of  such  boundless  charity  and  liber- 
ality of  spirit  exposed  him,  he  said,  to  "  very  dis- 
agreeable rencontres.  To  meet  those  who  expect 
light  from  you,  and  to  be  provoked  to  thwart  and 
discountenance  and  unsettle  them  by  all  you  say, 
is  pathetical."  Nor  was  it  only  in  general  society 
that  he  felt  this  regret ;  the  nearer  people  stood  to 
him  the  more  difficult  he  had  sometimes  found  it 
to  communicate  himself  :  — 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  363 

"  Strange  it  is  that  I  can  go  back  to  no  part 
of  youth,  no  past  relation,  without  shrinking  and 
shrinking.  Not  Ellen,  not  Edward,  not  Charles. 
Infinite  compunctions  embitter  each  of  these  dear 
names  and  all  who  surrounded  them.  I  console 
myself  with  the  thought  that  if  Ellen,  if  Edward, 
if  Charles,  could  have  read  my  entire  heart  they 
should  have  seen  nothing  but  rectitude  of  purpose 
and  generosity  conquering  the  superficial  coldness 
and  prudence.  But  I  ask  now  why  I  was  not 
made,  like  these  beatified  mates  of  mine,  super- 
ficially generous  and  noble  as  well  as  internally  so. 
They  never  needed  to  shrink  at  any  remembrance, 
and  I  —  at  so  many  sad  passages  that  look  to  me 
now  as  if  I  had  been  blind  and  mad.  This  is  the 
thorn  in  the  flesh." 

Yet  he  had  nothing  of  the  passion  for  solitude 
that  some  men  have  felt.  "  Solitude  [he  says  when 
he  was  left  alone  for  a  day  or  two]  is  fearsome  and 
heavy-hearted."  He  never  could  have  been  a  her- 
mit, —  the  desire  for  companionship  and  communi- 
cation was  at  all  times  too  strong  in  him,  though 
there  was  also  a  constitutional  sensitiveness  that 
made  him  shrink  from  close  contact.  But  the  re- 
pulsion was  chiefly,  I  think,  the  effect  of  an  intel- 
lectual habit,  —  the  habit  of  dwelling  in  his  impres- 
sions, taking  them,  as  he  said,  as  wholes,  without 
reducing  them  to  any  common  denomination.  This 
made  him,  in  spite  of  his  intellectual  curiosity  and 


864  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

the  entire  catholicity  of  his  mind,  averse  to  any 
comparison  of  opinions.  He  could  not  come  down 
from  his  watch-tower  to  compare  notes  with  other 
observers,  and  if  they  came  to  him  they  put  him 
out. 

"  It  seemed  to  me  [he  writes  in  his  journal] ,  as 
I  mused  in  the  street  in  Boston  on  the  unpropi- 
tious  effect  of  the  town  on  my  humor,  that  there 
needs  a  certain  deliberation  and  tenacity  in  the 
entertainment  of  a  thought,  —  a  certain  '  longa- 
nimity,' to  make  that  confidence  and  stability  which 
can  meet  the  demands  ochers  make  on  us ;  my 
thoughts  are  too  short,  as  they  say  my  sentences 
are.  I  step  along  from  stone  to  stone  over  the 
Lethe  which  gurgles  round  my  path,  but  the  odds 
are  that  my  companion  encounters  me  just  as  I 
leave  one  stone  and  before  my  foot  has  well 
reached  the  other  ;  and  down  I  tumble  into  Lethe 
water." 

He  did  not  hold  his  thoughts  by  means  of  their 
relations  to  premises,  on  the  strength  of  reasons 
such  as  others  may  appreciate,  but  merely  through 
the  impression  on  his  own  mind,  which  could  not 
be  communicated. 

Emerson,  Mr.  James  says,  "  had  no  prosaic  side 
relating  him  to  ordinary  people."  Rather,  I  should 
say,  his  nature  and  circumstances  had  predisposed 
him  to  ignore  the  prosaic  side,  the  accidents  of  the 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  365 

individual,  in  himself  and  others,  and  to  look  at 
each  person  as  a  type,  an  illustration  of  a  particu- 
lar side  of  humanity.  Every  kind  and  manner  of 
man  interested  him,  and  the  more  the  greater  the 
difference  from  himself.  Every  man,  he  took  for 
granted,  had  his  own  ideal,  his  vision  of  perfec- 
tion ;  and  he  was  eager  to  know  what  it  was  that 
made  the  particular  object  of  pursuit  interesting, 
what  seemed  best  worth  while  in  the  other's  scheme 
of  life.  But  further  than  this  he  did  not  readily  go. 

"  I  like  man  [he  writes  in  his  journal  at  this 
time],  but  not  men.  The  genius  of  humanity  is 
very  easily  and  accurately  to  be  made  out  by  the 
poet-mind  ;  but  it  is  not  in  Miss  Nancy  or  Ado- 
niram  in  any  sufficiency.  I  like  man,  but  not  men. 
Instincts,  tendencies,  —  they  do  no  wrong;  they  are 
beautiful,  and  may  be  confided  in  and  obeyed. 
Though  they  slay  us  let  us  trust  them.  But  why 
should  eggs  and  tadpoles  talk  ?  All  is  mere  sketch, 
symptomatic,  possible  and  probable  for  us ;  we 
dwellers  in  tents,  we  outlines  in  chalk,  we  jokes 
and  buffooneries,  why  should  we  be  talking?  Let 
us  have  the  grace  to  be  abstemious." 

"  In  the  highest  friendship  [he  says  in  a  letter 
in  1838]  we  form  a  league  with  the  Idea  of  the  man 
who  stands  to  us  in  that  relation,  —  not  with  the 
actual  person.  We  deal  with  him  as  a  just,  true, 
pure,  and  universal  soul ;  and  make  him,  therefore, 
a  representative  to  us  of  the  entire  humanity." 


366  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

It  would  be  misleading  to  represent  this  as  Em- 
erson's view  of  friendship ;  still  it  was  one  of  his 
views,  or  one  of  his  moods,  and  it  may  help  to  ex- 
plain Mr.  James's  paradox  that  a  man  of  "im- 
mense personal  fascination  "  could  be  "  one  of  the 
least  remunerative  "  of  companions ;  since  it  is  al- 
ways fascinating  to  be  taken  at  one's  best,  and  yet, 
to  be  taken  as  a  representative  figure,  a  specimen 
of  universal  humanity,  may  become  exhausting. 
Emerson  was  not  unaware  of  the  peculiarity.  He 
writes  to  Margaret  Fuller  about  a  new  acquaint- 
ance :  — 

CONCORD,  March  8,  1839. 

.  .  .  Our  boundless  interest  in  fine  people  seems 
ever  to  betray  us  into  false  positions.  We  wish 
them  to  make  for  us,  on  each  rare  and  accidental 
occasion,  an  exhibition  of  their  nature  and  talent. 
'  O  excellent  person,'  we  civilly  say,  '  I  know  and 
have  heard  that  thou  art  a  select  soul,  and  that  all 
the  gods  love  thee.  Vouchsafe  on  the  instant  to 
give  me  an  authentic  sign  of  all  thou  art,  and  all 
thou  hopest  to  do.  And,  O  excellent,  do  it  speed- 
ily, for  I  may  never  meet  thee  again.'  Thus  ad- 
jured, how  can  anybody  be  so  preposterous  as  to 
hesitate,  or  hide  his  virtues?  Nevertheless,  how 
can  the  modest  inquirer  ask  less  ?  This  is  what 
we  really  would  know :  What  are  you  ?  and  would 
know  it  of  more  persons  than  our  domestic  and 
practical  round  of  action  will  ever  include.  This 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  367 

craving  it  was  which  invented  the  old  Elysium  and 
invents  the  later  Heaven." 


And  to  another  correspondent  he  writes :  — 
"  What  is  it  or  can  it  be  to  you  that,  through 
the  long,  mottled,  trivial  years,  a  dreaming  brother 
cherishes  in  a  corner  some  picture  of  you  as  a  type 
or  nucleus  of  happier  visions  and  a  freer  life  ?  I 
am  so  safe,  in  my  iron  limits,  from  intrusion  or  ex- 
travagance that  1  can  well  afford  to  indulge  my 
humor  with  the  figures  that  pass  my  dungeon  win- 
dow, without  incurring  any  risk  of  a  ridiculous 
shock  from  coming  hand  to  hand  with  my  Ariels 
and  Gabriels.  Besides,  if  you  and  other  deceivers 
should  really  not  have  the  attributes  of  which  you 
hang  out  the  sign,  —  you  were  meant  to  have  them ; 
they  are  in  the  world,  and  it  is  with  good  reason 
that  I  rejoice  in  the  tokens." 

Margaret  Fuller,  like  Mr.  James,  was  not  satis- 
fied with  such  a  relation,  and  she  returned  again 
and  again  to  the  charge,  until  Emerson  was  obliged 
to  explain  that  the  matter  was  not  to  be  dealt  with 
in  this  way.  He  writes  to  her :  — 

CONCORD,  October  24,  1840. 

MY  DEAR  MARGARET,  —  I  have  your  frank  and 
noble  and  affecting  letter,  —  and  yet  I  think  I 
could  wish  it  unwritten.  I  ought  never  to  have 
suffered  you  to  lead  me  into  any  conversation  or 


368  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

writing  on  our  relation,  —  a  topic  from  which  with 
all  persons  my  Genius  ever  sternly  warns  me  away. 
I  was  content  and  happy  to  meet  on  a  human  foot- 
ing a  woman  of  sense  and  sentiment,  with  whom 
one  could  exchange  reasonable  words,  and  go  away 
assured  that  wherever  she  went  was  light  and  force 
and  honor.  That  is  to  me  a  solid  good ;  it  gives 
value  to  thought  and  the  day ;  it  redeems  society 
from  that  foggy  and  misty  aspect  it  wears  so  often, 
seen  from  our  retirement ;  it  is  the  foundation  of 
everlasting  friendship. 

.  .  .  But  tell  me  that  I  am  cold  or  unkind,  and, 
in  my  most  flowing  state,  I  become  a  cake  of  ice ;  I 
can  feel  the  crystals  shoot  and  the  drops  solidify. 
It  may  do  for  others,  but  it  is  not  for  me  to  bring 
the  relation  to  speech.  Instantly  I  find  myself  a 
solitary,  unrelated  person,  destitute  not  only  of  all 
social  faculty,  but  of  all  private  substance.  I  see 
precisely  the  double  of  my  state  in  my  little  Waldo, 
when,  in  the  midst  of  his  dialogue  with  his  hobby- 
horse, in  the  full  tide  of  his  eloquence,  I  should 
ask  him  if  he  loves  me,  —  he  is  mute  and  stupid. 
...  I  take  it  for  granted  that  everybody  will 
show  me  kindness  and  wit,  and  am  too  happy  in 
the  observation  of  all  the  abundant  particulars  of 
the  show  to  feel  the  slightest  obligation  resting  on 
me  to  do  anything  or  say  anything  for  the  com- 
pany. I  talk  to  my  hobby,  and  will  join  you  in 
harnessing  and  driving  him ;  but  ask  me  what  I 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  369 

think  of  you  and  me,  and  I  am  put  to  confusion. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  difference  in  our  constitution. 
We  use  a  different  rhetoric.  It  seems  as  if  we  had 
been  born  and  bred  in  different  nations.  You  say 
you  understand  me  wholly.  You  cannot  communi- 
cate yourself  to  me.  I  hear  the  words  sometimes, 
but  remain  a  stranger  to  your  state  of  mind.  Yet 
are  we  all  the  time  a  little  nearer.  I  honor  you 
for  a  brave  and  beneficent  woman,  and  mark  with 
gladness  your  steadfast  good-will  to  me.  I  see  not 
how  we  can  bear  each  other  anything  else  than 
good-will,  though  we  had  sworn  to  the  contrary. 
And  now,  what  will  you  ?  The  stars  in  Orion  do 
not  quarrel  this  night,  but  shine  in  peace  in  their 
old  society.  Are  we  not  much  better  than  they? 
Let  us  live  as  we  have  always  done,  only  ever  bet- 
ter, I  hope,  and  richer.  Speak  to  me  of  every- 
thing but  myself,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  make  an 
intelligible  reply.  .  .  . 

Yours  affectionately,         K.  W.  EMEKSON. 

Of  course  the  case  was  worse,  when,  instead  of 
an  abundant  nature  like  Miss  Fuller  or  Mr.  James, 
well-meaning  persons,  with  an  insufficient  dose  of 
their  own  quality,  came  to  him  to  be  filled  and  di- 
rected. 

"People  stretch  out  to  him  their  mendicant 
arms,  to  whom  he  feels  that  he  does  not  belong, 
and  who  do  not  belong  to  him.  He  freezes  them 


870  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

with  his  face  of  apathy,  and  they  very  naturally 
tax  him  with  selfishness.  The  most  unfit  associates 
hasten  to  him  with  joy  and  confidence  that  they 
are  the  very  ones  whom  his  faith  and  philosophy 
invite  ;  they  mar  all  his  days  with  their  follies  and 
then  with  their  tacit  reproaches,  so  that  his  fair 
ideal  of  domestic  life  and  serene  household  gods  he 
cannot  realize,  but  is  afflicted  instead  with  cen- 
sures from  the  inmate,  censures  from  the  observer, 
and  necessarily,  if  he  be  of  a  sympathetic  charac- 
ter, censures  from  himself  also.  Could  they  not 
die,  or  succeed,  or  help  themselves,  or  draw  others, 
or  draw  me,  or  offend  me  ?  In  any  manner,  I  care 
not  how,  could  they  not  be  disposed  of,  and  cease 
to  hang  there  in  the  horizon,  an  unsettled  appear- 
ance, too  great  to  be  neglected  and  not  great 
enough  to  be  of  any  avail  to  this  great  craving  hu- 
manity?" 

These  were  confidences  for  his  journal ;  out- 
wardly he  made  no  sign,  nor  was  the  "  devastator 
of  the  day,"  though  he  might  feel  some  disappoint- 
ment, often,  I  think,  led  to  suspect  the  annoyance 
he  gave.  Emerson  was  steadily  faithful  to  his 
ideal  of  society,  in  spite  of  all  mischances,  and  kept 
his  house  open  to  all  who  chose  to  come,  even  if 
they  stayed  all  day.  "  Especially  [he  writes  in  his 
journal]  if  one  of  those  monotones  (whereof,  as  my 
friends  think,  I  have  a  savage  society,  like  a  meiiag- 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  371 

erie  of  monsters)  come  to  you,  receive  him."  And 
he  was  always  ready  for  the  project  of  a  club,  or  a 
meeting  for  conversation,  though  all  his  experi- 
ence was  against  them. 

(Journal,  1838-9.)  "  Shall  I  not  paint  in  these 
pages  an  experience  so  conspicuous  to  me  and  so 
often  repeated  in  these  late  years  as  the  debating 
club ;  now  under  the  name  of  Teachers'  Meeting, 
now  a  Conference,  now  an  Esthetic  Club,  and  now 
a  Religious  Association,  but  always  bearing  for  me 
the  same  fruit,  —  a  place  where  my  memory  works 
more  than  my  wit,  and  so  I  come  away  with  com- 
punction ?  Is  it  because  I  am  such  a  bigot  to  my 
own  whims  that  I  distrust  the  advantage  to  be  de- 
rived from  literary  conversazioni  ?  " 

Meetings  for  talk  upon  high  topics  were  then 
much  in  vogue.  They  naturally  fell  into  mono- 
logue, not  leading  to  much  interchange  of  opinions. 
Emerson  somewhere  quotes  with  approbation  a  rule 
for  such  meetings,  —  that  no  one  should  reply  to 
what  had  been  said  by  another  speaker.  He,  I 
think,  rarely  said  much ;  the  chief  value  for  him 
was  the  stimulus  to  his  own  thoughts.  Even  of 
Mr.  Alcott,  who  was  his  oracle  if  any  one  was,  he 
says  :  — 

"When  I  go  to  talk  with  Alcott,  it  is  not  so 
much  to  get  his  thoughts  as  to  watch  myself  un- 
der his  influence.  He  excites  me,  and  I  think 
freely." 


372  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Besides  the  monotones,  there  were,  among  Em- 
erson's visitors  of  that  prolific  time,  many  strange 
figures.  Not  only  the  "  men  with  beards,"  notice- 
able then  as  men  without  beards  are  now,  but  men 
who  chose  to  go  without  shoes,  or,  per  contra,  to 
keep  their  hats  on  when  they  came  into  the  house. 
One  of  these  latter  resisting  all  hints  and  offers  to 
relieve  him  of  his  hat,  Emerson  took  his  own,  and 
said,  "  Well,  then,  if  you  prefer  it,  we  will  talk  in 
the  yard,"  and  led  the  way  thither. 

Although  it  could  not  be  said  of  Emerson,  as  it 
was  of  Wordsworth,  that  his  study  was  out-of-doors, 
yet  the  afternoon  walk  was  an  important  part  of 
his  day,  for  other  purposes  than  that  of  bodily  ex- 
ercise. He  composed  more  freely,  he  said,  upon 
the  hills,  and  he  conversed  more  freely,  when  he 
had  a  companion,  as  sometimes  happened  (though 
never  as  a  rule  more  than  one,  except  on  Sundays), 
—  oftenest  in  these  days  Thoreau.  or  Mr.  Ellery 
Channing,  as  keen  an  observer  of  nature  as  Tho- 
reau, and  always  good  company  for  Emerson.  Mr. 
Alcott,  I  think,  did  not  love  to  walk ;  he  generally, 
I  have  heard,  before  they  got  far,  came  to  anchor 
for  greater  convenience  of  talking. 

Another  noticeable  person  lived  (from  1842  till 
1846)  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  village,  in  the 
Old  Manse,  which  he  has  made  famous,  —  Haw- 
thorne ;  a  greater  walker,  too,  though  he  did  not 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  873 

often  walk  with  Emerson  ;  never  that  I  know  of 
but  once,  when  Emerson  sought  him  out  for  the 
purpose,  soon  after  Hawthorne's  first  coming  to  live 
in  Concord. 

"  I  have  forgotten  in  what  year  [Emerson  writes 
in  his  journal  after  Hawthorne's  death,  and  after- 
wards inserts  "  September  27,  1842  "],  whilst  he 
lived  in  the  Manse,  soon  after  his  marriage,  I  said 
to  him,  I  shall  never  see  you  in  this  hazardous 
way;  we  must  take  a  long  walk  together.  Will 
you  go  to  Harvard  and  visit  the  Shakers  ?  He 
agreed.  ...  It  was  a  satisfactory  tramp ;  we  had 
good  talk  on  the  way,  of  which  I  set  down  some 
record  in  my  journal." 

Here  is  the  record  :  — 

"  September  27  was  a  fine  day,  and  Hawthorne 
and  I  set  forth  on  a  walk.  Our  walk  had  no  inci- 
dents, it  needed  none ;  we  were  in  excellent  spirits, 
had  much  conversation,  for  we  were  both  old  col- 
lectors who  had  never  had  opportunity  before  to 
show  each  other  our  cabinets,  so  that  we  could  have 
filled  with  matter  much  longer  days.  We  agreed 
that  it  needed  a  little  dash  of  humor  or  extrava- 
gance in  the  traveller  to  give  occasion  to  incident  in 
his  journey.  Here  we  sober  men,  easily  pleased, 
kept  on  the  outside  of  the  land,  and  did  not  by  so 
much  as  a  request  for  a  cup  of  milk  creep  into  any 
farm-house.  If  want  of  pence  in  our  pocket  or 
some  vagary  in  our  brain  drove  us  into  these  '  huts 


374  RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 

where  poor  men  lie,'  to  crave  dinner  or  night's 
lodging,  it  would  be  so  easy  to  break  into  some 
mesh  of  domestic  romance,  learn  so  much  pathetic 
private  history,  —  perchance  see  the  first  blush 
mantle  on  the  cheek  of  the  young  girl  when  the 
mail-stage  came  or  did  not  come ;  or  even  get  en- 
tangled ourselves  in  some  thread  of  gold  or  gray. 
Then  again  the  opportunities  which  the  taverns 
once  offered  the  traveller,  of  witnessing  and  even 
sharing  in  the  joke  or  the  politics  of  the  teamsters 
and  farmers  on  the  road,  are  now  no  more.  The 
Temperance  Society  emptied  the  bar-room ;  it  is  a 
cold  place.  H.  tried  to  smoke  a  cigar,  but  I  ob- 
served he  was  soon  out  on  the  piazza.  After  noon 
we  reached  Stow,  and  dined  ;  then  continued  our 
journey  towards  Harvard  ;  making  our  day's  walk, 
according  to  our  best  computation,  about  twenty 
miles.  The  last  miles,  however,  we  rode  in  a  wagon, 
having  been  challenged  by  a  friendly,  fatherly  gen- 
tleman, who  knew  my  name  and  my  father's  name 
and  history,  and  who  insisted  on  doing  the  honors 
of  his  town  to  us,  and  of  us  to  his  townsmen  ;  for 
he  fairly  installed  us  at  the  tavern,  introduced  us 

to  the  Doctor  and  to  General ,  and  bespoke 

the  landlord's  best  attention  to  our  wants.  Next 
morning  we  began  our  walk,  at  half  past  six  o'clock, 
to  the  Shaker  village,  distant  three  miles  and  a  half. 
Whilst  the  good  sisters  were  getting  ready  our 
breakfast  we  had  a  conversation  with  Seth  Blanch- 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  375 

ard  and  Cloutman,  of  the  Brethren,  who  gave  an 
honest  account,  by  yea  and  by  nay,  of  their  faith 
and  practice.  They  were  not  stupid,  like  some 
whom  I  have  seen  of  their  society,  and  not  worldly, 
like  others.  The  conversation  on  both  parts  was 
frank  enough.  With  the  downright  I  will  be  down- 
right, thought  I ;  and  Seth  showed  some  humor. 
I  doubt  not  we  should  have  had  our  way  with  them 
to  a  good  extent  (not  quite  after  the  manner  of 
Hayraddin  Maugrabin  with  the  monks  of  Liege)  if 
we  could  have  stayed  twenty-four  hours  ;  although 
my  powers  of  persuasion  were  crippled  by  a  dis- 
graceful barking  cold,  and  Hawthorne  inclined  to 
play  Jove  more  than  Mercurius.  .  .  .  They  are  in 
many  ways  an  interesting  society,  but  at  present 
have  an  additional  importance  as  an  experiment 
of  Socialism,  which  so  falls  in  with  the  temper 
of  the  times.  .  .  .  Moreover,  this  settlement  is  of 
great  value  in  the  heart  of  the  country  as  a  model 
farm,  in  the  absence  of  that  rural  nobility  we 
talked  of  yesterday.  .  .  .  From  the  Shaker  village 
we  came  to  Littleton,  and  thence  to  Acton  ;  still  in 
the  same  redundance  of  splendor.  It  was  like  a 
day  of  July ;  and  from  Acton  we  sauntered  lei- 
surely homeward  to  finish  the  nineteen  miles  of  our 
second  day  before  four  in  the  afternoon." 

Of  their  talk  there  is  unhappily  no  report,  but 
it  was  doubtless  mostly  on  the  surface.  They  ad- 
mired and  liked  each  other  personally,  but  they 


376  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

were  very  unlike  in  nature,  and  of  an  unlikeuess 
that  had  no  mutual  attraction.  They  "  interde- 
spised"  each  other's  moonshine,  as  very  amiable 
and  pretty,  but  rather  childish.  In  his  journal,  in 
1838,  Emerson  writes  :  — 

"  Elizabeth  Peabody  [Hawthorne's  sister-in-law] 
brought  me  yesterday  Hawthorne's  '  Footprints  on 
the  Seashore '  to  read.  I  complained  that  there 
was  no  inside  to  it.  Alcott  and  he  together  would 
make  a  man." 

When  Hawthorne  returned  to  Concord,  in  1852, 
he  lived  at  Emerson's  end  of  the  village,  but  they 
came  no  closer  to  each  other.  Upon  Hawthorne's 
death  Emerson  writes  in  his  journal :  — 

"  I  thought  there  was  a  tragic  element  in  the 
event  that  might  be  more  fully  rendered,  in  the 
painful  solitude  of  the  man ;  which,  I  suppose, 
could  not  longer  be  endured,  and  he  died  of  it.  I 
have  found  in  his  death  a  surprise  and  a  disap- 
pointment. I  thought  him  a  greater  man  than  any 
of  his  words  betray ;  there  was  still  a  great  deal  of 
work  in  him,  and  he  might  one  day  show  a  purer 
power.  Moreover,  I  have  felt  sure  of  him,  in  his 
neighborhood  and  in  his  necessities  of  sympathy 
and  intelligence,  —  that  I  could  well  wait  his  time, 
his  unwillingness  and  caprice,  and  might  one  day 
conquer  a  friendship.  It  would  have  been  a  hap- 
piness, doubtless,  to  both  of  us,  to  have  come  into 
habits  of  unreserved  intercourse.  It  was  easy  to 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  877 

talk  with  him ;  there  were  no  barriers ;  only  he 
said  so  little  that  I  talked  too  much,  and  stopped 
only  because,  as  he  gave  no  indication,  I  feared  to 
exceed.  He  showed  no  egotism  or  self-assertion; 
rather  a  humility,  and  at  one  time  a  fear  that  he 
had  written  himself  out.  One  day  when  I  found 
him  at  the  top  of  his  hill,  in  the  woods,  he  paced 
back  the  path  to  the  house,  and  said :  '  This  path 
is  the  only  remembrance  of  me  that  will  remain.' 
Now  it  appears  that  I  waited  too  long." 

"  I  do  not  think  any  of  his  books  worthy  of  his 
genius.  I  admired  the  man,  who  was  simple,  ami- 
able, truth-loving,  and  frank  in  conversation,  but 
I  never  read  his  books  with  pleasure  ;  they  are  too 
young." 

When  the  Hawthornes  left  the  Manse,  in  1846, 
the  owner,  Reverend  Samuel  Ripley,  Emerson's 
uncle,  moved  thither  from  Waltham.  His  wife, 
Mrs.  Sarah  Alden  (Bradford)  Ripley,  was  an  early 
friend  of  the  Emerson  s  from  the  dark  days  at 
Boston  before  her  marriage,  and  her  interest  in  the 
boys,  particularly  Waldo,  had  begun  in  their  child- 
hood. She  used  to  correspond  with  him  about  his 
studies  and  his  early  verse-making,  and  she  had 
watched  his  course  with  steady  friendship  ever  since. 
There  was  in  her  a  remarkable  union  of  the  loveliest 
domestic  character  and  untiring  devotion  to  an  ex- 
3  traordinary  weight  and  variety  of  household  duties 


378  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

with  a  lifelong  enthusiasm  for  learning.  Emerson, 
in  an  obituary  notice  (Boston  Daily  Advertiser, 
July  31,  1867),  says  of  her  :  — 

"Any  knowledge,  all  knowledge,  was  welcome. 
The  thirst  for  knowledge  would  not  let  her  sleep. 
Her  stores  increased  day  by  day.  She  was  abso- 
lutely without  pedantry.  Nobody  ever  heard  of 
her  learning  until  a  necessity  came  for  its  use,  and 
then  nothing  could  be  more  simple  than  her  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  proposed  to  her.  .  .  .  She  was 
not  only  the  most  amiable  but  the  tenderest  of 
women,  wholly  sincere,  thoughtful  for  others,  .  .  . 
absolutely  without  appetite  for  luxury  or  display 
or  praise  or  influence,  with  entire  indifference  to 
trifles." 

This  last  trait  he  illustrates  by  the  story  of  her 
friend  Miss  Mary  Emerson's  trial  of  her  by  put- 
ting into  her  hand,  at  one  of  their  flittings  across 
the  town,  a  broom,  to  be  carried  to  the  new  lodg- 
ing. "This  she  faithfully  carried  across  Boston 
Common,  from  Summer  Street  to  Hancock  Street, 
without  hesitation  or  remark."  Her  life  was  too 
full  of  substantial  interests  to  allow  her  to  mind 
trifles ;  and  this  loving  enthusiasm  she  imparted  to 
those  who  came  near  her.  One  of  her  pupils  (for, 
among  other  things,  she  found  time  and  strength 
to  fit  boys  for  college,  and  to  superintend  the  work 
of  college-students  "rusticated"  to  "VValtham)  says 
of  her  (Boston  Evening  Transcript,  August  8t 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  379 

1867)  :  "  What  a  wealth  of  learning  and  thought 
and  feeling  she  poured  out  for  these  pupils !  Il- 
lumined by  her  clear  intellect,  the  knottiest  prob- 
lem was  disentangled ;  embellished  by  such  a  lover 
of  learning,  the  driest  subject  was  made  interest- 
ing. .  .  .  Her  faith  in  their  intuitions  and  capabil- 
ities lifted  them  and  shamed  or  encouraged  them 
to  efforts  impossible  under  another  instructor ;  for 
she  did  not  merely  impart  instruction,  she  educated 
all  the  powers  of  the  mind  and  heart." 

Her  friendship  for  Emerson  brought  reproaches 
upon  her  from  her  implacable  friend,  his  aunt  Mary, 
as  having  some  part  in  his  aberrations.  This  was 
probably  a  mistake  ;  at  least  Emerson  was  con- 
scious of  no  such  influence,  and,  indeed,  shows  re- 
markably small  interest  in  her  metaphysical  and 
scientific  studies. 

"  S.  A.  R.  [he  writes  in  his  journal]  is  a  bright 
foreigner ;  she  signalizes  herself  among  the  figures 
of  this  masquerade.  I  do  not  hope,  when  I  see 
her,  to  gain  anything,  any  thought :  she  is  choked, 
too,  by  the  multitude  of  all  her  riches,  —  Greek 
and  German,  Biot  and  Bichat,  chemistry  and  phi- 
losophy. All  this  is  bright  obstruction.  But  ca- 
pable she  is  of  high  and  calm  intelligence,  and  of 
putting  all  the  facts,  all  life,  aloof.  She  is  superior 
to  all  she  knows.  .  .  .  She  has  an  innate  purity 
and  nobility  which  releases  her  once  for  all  from 
any  solicitudes  for  decorum,  or  dress,  or  other  ap- 


880  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 

pearances.  No  dust  or  grime  could  stick  to  the 
pure  silver." 

The  kind  of  influence  she  exerted  on  him  is 
rather  to  be  traced  in  the  following  extract  from 
his  journal  in  1838  :  — 

"Yesterday  at  Waltham.  The  kindness  and 
genius  that  blend  their  light  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs. 
Bipley  inspire  me  with  some  feeling  of  unworthi- 
ness ;  at  least  with  impatience  of  doing  so  little  to 
deserve  so  much  confidence." 

She  was  one  of  those  friends  whom  he  loved  to 
have,  like  his  books,  within  reach,  whether  he  used 
them  or  not.  After  Mr.  Eipley's  death  in  1847, 
she  came  regularly  to  Emerson's  house  on  Sunday 
evenings,  and  her  radiant  social  influence  gave  rise 
to  regular  and  numerous  gatherings  there  on  that 
evening,  which  Emerson  greatly  enjoyed. 

Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar,  of  Concord  (the  collector 
of  a  loving  memorial  of  Mrs.  Ripley  in  the  "  Wor- 
thy Women  of  our  First  Century"),  was  a  sister  to 
Emerson  from  the  death  of  his  brother  Charles,  to 
whom  she  was  engaged  to  be  married,  and  this  in- 
timate relation  to  one  gifted  as  she  was  with  an 
extraordinary  fineness  of  perception,  but  whose 
constitutional  reserve,  equal  to  his  own,  would,  but 
for  this  tie,  have  precluded  intimacy,  was  a  con- 
stant occasion  of  self-congratulation  with  him. 
Abundant  sentiment  without  a  touch  of  sentimen- 


VISITORS  AND  FRIENDS.  881 

tality,  and  an  unswerving  balance  of  mind  joined 
with  entire  openness  to  ideas,  made  her  a  most 
valuable  counterpoise  to  the  eager  idealists  about 
him.  "The  fine  and  finest  young  people  [he 
writes  in  1837]  despise  life,  but  Elizabeth  Hoar 
and  I  agree  that  it  is  a  great  excess  of  politeness 
in  us  to  look  scornful  or  to  cry  for  company,  —  we 
to  whom  a  day  is  a  sound  and  solid  good."  She  is 
the  confidante,  and  as  it  were  the  touchstone  of  his 
ideas;  and  many  sentences  in  the  Essays  are  their 
mutual  confidences.  He  speaks  in  his  journal  of 
the  "  admirable  fairness  "  of  her  mind  :  "  I  think 
no  one  who  writes  or  utilizes  his  opinions  can  pos- 
sibly be  so  fair.  She  will  see  finer  nuances  of 
equity  which  you  would  never  see  if  untold.  She 
applied  the  Napoleon  mot,  'Eespect  the  burden,' 
so  well  to  Lincoln  quoad  Wendell  Phillips." 

"  The  last  night,  talked  with  Elizabeth  the  Wise, 
who  defined  common  sense  as  the  perception  of  the 
inevitable  laws  of  existence.  The  philosophers 
considered  only  such  laws  as  could  be  stated  ;  but 
sensible  men,  those  also  which  could  not  be  stated, 
—  a  very  just  distinction.  Her  illustration  of  the 
common  laws  was :  You  must  count  your  money ; 
for,  if  you  call  it  petty  and  count  it  not,  '  through 
greatness  of  soul,'  it  will  have  its  revenge  on  your 
soul  by  coming  in  thither  also  in  the  sequel,  with 
injurious  suspicions  of  your  best  friends,  and  other 
disquietudes." 


382  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

"  I  had  occasion  the  other  day  to  say  to  E.  H. 
that  I  like  best  the  strong  and  worthy  persons,  like 
her  father  [Samuel  Hoar],  who  support  the  social 
order  without  hesitation  or  misgiving :  [then,  after 
a  paragraph  describing  the  eager  reformers]  but 
there  is  a  third  class  who  are  born  into  a  new 
heaven  and  earth,  with  organs  for  the  new  element, 
and  who,  from  that  Better,  behold  this  bad  world 
in  which  the  million  gropes  and  suffers.  By  their 
life  and  happiness  in  the  new,  I  am  assured  of  the 
doom  of  the  old,  and  these,  therefore,  I  love  and 
worship." 

"  E.  H.  consecrates.  I  have  no  other  friend 
whom  I  more  wish  to  be  immortal  than  she ;  an 
influence  I  cannot  spare,  but  must  always  have  at 
hand  for  recourse." 


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